Leaving Your Parent's House

The walls you once walked by

Without any notice

scream as if to say

Where are you going?

A new place, that's where

Somewhere I think I know

but know nothing about

But hope to learn, and will

A familiar but unfamiliar place

I know everything, but nothing

about what here is

What I thought I knew

Lonely but not alone

thinking back to those walls

Is this a dream?

The Bridge

How do I know

this walk, the mist, the wind,

the biting cold stinging the skin,

the smell of exhaust and the sound

of engines, the little walking man

the views daring you to stare out,

over the rushing water.

How do I know this place?

Is this a place you recognize?

The Man

He, the one who brought here what we have.

What we had. What we have.

The buildings still lined along the water.

They look the same, but do no stand for the reason they were built

He, the one who traveled, explored, created, stole

the reason for this city, for its birth, for its beginning.

Now serve a different purpose

To serve rather than to produce.

Streets lined with cobblestones,

walked by people who did not see them paved.

A different place, in the same location.

New people, new culture, new everything.

Except for the buildings

The roads

The bridges

The water

The water that gave this city life.

The real power of Lowell.

The reason we are all here,

thanks to it, thanks to Him.

          The three pieces I wrote about for the Common creative assignment were each based on individual pieces in either issue 1 or 7 in The Common.

The first piece was based on the piece titled Your Parent's House by Ziena Hashem Beck. My poem, titled Leaving Your Parent's House is a continuation of Beck's work. In Beck's poem, the reader is taken through the typical house that he/she may have grown up in. The simple things like the walls are highlighted, while also the people and the same old rote conversations that happen over and over in an old home are talked about as well. In my piece, I take the reader to a new place, ripping him/her from their comfort of home at his/her parents house to somewhere that is completely new. I experienced this, along with hundreds of thousands of college freshman do every year. I aimed to relate to the alienation that one may feel when they enter a completely new place, and while they are surrounded by people at almost all times, it is still very easy to feel lonely. Perhaps after reading this, they may not feel so alone.

          My second piece is based on the piece titled Little Chapel by Richie Hofmann. This piece recalls a place where the narrator suggests he/she knows the place being described, but does not know exactly how, and also inquires about whether or not any readers also find this place familiar. In my piece titled The Bridge I tried to do something similar. I tried to describe a place that I know very well, the Bridge that stands between East and North campus here at Umass Lowell. A place that many of us here know, and to the last question of “Is this a place you recognize?” hopefully, many of my fellow students would reply with a yes, as they too know this place. The interesting thing about it though, its that their observations and memories about it may be vastly different than my own.

          The third piece I wrote is based on a piece of the same title in the first issue of The Common, by Cliff Forshaw. In Forshaw's work, he speaks of a man, in this situation, a Governor, who has created prisons, and chapels. Within the walls of these institutions so much goes on, more than what the actual walls themselves could have done, showing that in most cases, it is what happens there that gives a place its meaning, not the place itself. Here in Lowell, that man is the namesake of the city, Francis Cabot Lowell. He is the one that created, or perhaps stole, the idea for a machine that would transform the city forever. The machine loom was the reason for the building of all of the mill buildings that define the city of Lowell's skyline. It was this man, and the river that runs through the city, that gave Lowell the power to become such a revolutionary city. Centuries later however, Lowell is a different place, with entirely different people and culture, but no matter what is here, the mills will always be a reminder of what this city was founded on.