Three Poems from Lynchburg: A Study in Stillness

I flew to Virginia last Tuesday and drove a rental car two hours to my hometown, Lynchburg. The car smelled like someone else's life, and by the time I hit the city limits, I was already writing in my head. Not about the place, exactly, but around it. Sort of like how you might walk around a hole in the floor, aware of it with every step but never looking directly down.

I spent four days there, mainly to visit family and friends and drive around a town with more hills in one neighborhood than the entirety of the Bay Area. I was also writing.

The funny thing is, I've been writing poetry since I was 13, and I still don't know how to write about home directly. Every time I try, it comes out like I'm writing a postcard to myself. But the poems you're about to read—about a broken table, dirty dishes, a half-open window—somehow they get closer to the truth of being home than anything I could write that actually named the place.

Here are the poems, and afterward I'll dive into what they mean and what they're trying to do and you can let me know how they do or don't accomplish just that.