Lawrenceburg

                       Lawrenceburg

Because I have been spending a lot of time at home lately, it is fitting this post is about home. Even better, I am excited to share some of my students’ writing about home. Several weeks ago we wrote poems modeled after Carl Sandburg’s “Chicago”. My students wrote lines that are so genuine and particularly encouraging right now. I’m also sharing the one I wrote, but I do so with great trepidation--I am no poet. Enjoy!

Lawrenceburg
Football;
Bearcats;
Main street;
Nonexistent mufflers;
And the roads that never seem to end.

They tell me it is nothing
They tell me it is small
They tell me it is not known
They tell me they’re just passing through
They tell me they do not see what I see

I say to them it’s home
I say to them there is no other
Here is a town that is genuine
Here is a town that’s truly together
Show me another town that make you take a second look as if leaving is the right decision.

Under the water wishing you could stay
Paused in midair after letting go of that rope...laughing
Singing in your friend’s car at the top of your lungs late at night...laughing
Screaming on Friday night lights for that one touchdown that the whole town is counting on…
Laughing
​
Proud to be football;
Proud to be Bearcats;
Proud to be Main Street;
Proud to be nonexistent mufflers;
And proud to be on the road that just never seems to end.
                                                                                                                                    Shayna Villier



Lexington
Basketball and football players
They play their hearts out here
Big, tall, fast
Home of the Big Blue Nation

They say you’re this and that
But underneath that big blue jersey
You’re a farmer and a distiller
An athlete and a doctor
A student and a cop

I tell them it’s more than horses and bourbon
It’s more than slums and basketball
But show me another city where everyone bleeds blue
Where horses hold the biggest importance in sports
Where nearly every person is tried and true.

The Beehive of Kentucky
The home of Ale-8
The horse capital of the world
Home sweet home
Lexington
                                                                                                                                          Jakob Redmon





Lawrenceburg
Stop on the Bourbon Trail.
On the Kentucky River.
On I-64.
Town on top of a knob where we watch the clouds go by.
A city so small no one knows we’re here.
But we are. 

They tell me you are too small to matter--
A bedroom for those who work
In Lexington
In Louisville
In larger places
That show up on maps.
They say there’s nothing here--
Nothing to do
Nowhere to go
Nothing to see.

I say to them--they are looking in the wrong direction.
Show me another town humble enough to make the outsider feel at home--
Offer him a little bourbon, a glass of wine, a bowl of burgoo.
Here is a town that is so Kentucky, so America, so Home--
So much more than nothing.
Show me another town that stands so beautifully 
When so many pass her by.
Like an owl, resting among branches and in barns, in silence you watch over us,
Grinning in the satisfaction of an old woman looking after her own. 
The spreading of darkness is the spreading of your wings, 
Grinning you sail through the openness of these skies, looking into the blue-green below,
You see the farmer, the distiller, the happy child. 
You grin more. 
You see the lonely, the broken, the hurt. They’re here, too. But you’re glad. 
They’re yours. 
You are proud to be a stop on the Bourbon Trail, on the Kentucky River, on I-64, 
A place to sit atop a knob and watch the clouds go by,
A place for the weary to sleep.
                                                                                                                                              Rebecca Potter