Wish You Were Here

The Poet Laureate of Bellemaison sent a card, with a poem, and wrote a note, directing us to go here. You should go too. You'll know everyone.

Willie Metcalf

I was Willie Metcalf.
They used to call me "Doctor Meyers"
Because, they said, I looked like him.
And he was my father, according to Jack McGuire.
I lived in the livery stable,
Sleeping on the floor
Side by side with Roger Baughman's bulldog.
Or sometimes in a stall.
I could crawl between the legs of the wildest horses
Without getting kicked--we knew each other.
On spring days I tramped through the country
To get the feeling, which I sometimes lost,
That I was not a separate thing from the earth.
I used to lose myself, as if in sleep,
By lying with eyes half-open in the woods.
Sometime I talked with animals--even toads and snakes--
Anything that had an eye to look into.
Once I saw a stone in the sunshine
Trying to turn into jelly.
In April days in this cemetery
The dead people gathered all about me,
And grew still, like a congragation in silent prayer.
I never knew whether I was a part of the earth
With flowers growing in me, or whether Iwalked--
Now I know.

--Edgar Lee Masters
Spoon River Anthology


JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA