I am from egg whites, 

From Taste of Inspiration hummus and Blue Moon beer.

I am from a 3-acre lot on a dead-end road, where native and acquired flora and fauna fill the yard and air. 

I am from the Firebush and the aged-Hedge Apple trees that retired many years ago from being a fence row. 

I am from the coal camp trinity (God, FDR, and John L. Lewis),

from hardscrabble lives and uplifting love,

from Frog and Bernice, Daddy Bud and Mockie, Lonnie Lee and Betty Joan. 

I am from the adapters and adopters, from those who wandered at times for work, but came back to the mountains to die. 

From a full-blooded Cherokee great grandmother, according to family lore, whose maiden name was Rosenbaum, and from Uncle Frank who had the very silver dollar Washington chunked clean across the Potomac. 

I was a southern Baptist until a pastor counseled me against dating a Catholic girl. Hell was involved.  I am from Lao Tzu and a Presbyterian Jesus. 

From Chipping Norton UK via clans of Irish and Welsh folks, from chicken and dumplings and thick slabs of bologna and yellow cheese on white bread. 

From Mockie’s Grill where a young Robert Byrd worked part-time after school. His clothes weren’t the best, it was said, but they were always clean. 

From Frog who favored St. Augustine beer and by all accounts could be a mean drunk, leaving the eldest son, my father, and Uncle Basil to care for the family. 

I am from the cedar chest that long stood at the foot of my parents’ bed, the wooden archival vault of mementos and doilies, testifying that we were all young once, emerging from black and white into colorful hues.

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This is my take on the original George Ella Lyon “Where I’m From” poem. Her seed of a poem continues to grow as part of the “I Am From” Project @ I Am From Project – A River of Voices