A Prairie Home Companion from American Public Media: First Person

Dogwoods/Road Trip, Late July, Western Pennsylvania
by Bernadette Kazmarski
December 20, 2006

Dogwoods

The dogwoods are blooming up and down my street.
The breaking of the cold,
The unusually warm, brilliant spring day
Has brought my neighbors out to wash cars and cut grass.
Like the returning birds
Their conversations drift and circle from yard to yard
And cross the street on capricious breezes;
We have been put away all winter
Like articles of summer clothing
Our potential at rest,
Yet now, even at night,
Pale, airy clouds of blossoms
Hover in the darkness all over the neighborhood.

Road Trip, Late July, Western Pennsylvania

Green, green waves ahead
diminishing to blue over the northern horizon
exalted rises and shadowed valleys gradually made plain
to rolling hills and misted hollows
interstate unrolled as ribbon
around hill and following valley,
signs noting unseen destinations
bearing hopeful small town names:
"Freedom"
"Prosperity"
"Harmony"
little hamlets of Pennsylvania coal being crushed to diamonds,
glittering in the vales;
a gauze curtain of rain shower flows across hills
soaking opposite side of road
but the sun shines brightly ahead,
occasionally a sudden cluster of official orange obstructions
gives instructions to change directions
slowing pace to allow a close and careful study
of native plants along the roadside,
a stately brick farmhouse, a skull with empty windows, abandoned, its outbuildings only roofs in the tall grass
as if melting back into the earth from whence they were created;
then a curving exit that leaves the noise of four lanes behind a rise,
a sojourn on a quiet two-lane three-digit backroad,
once the lifeline before the interstate, now empty;
clusters of buildings at intersections, one traffic light flashing yellow,
old farms and equipment,
rusted industrial structures,
a field gone entirely to Queen Anne's Lace,
some cows on a hillside,
and everywhere roadside stands
celebrate the first flush of mid-summer bounty;
collect loose change from pockets and floor of car
and with the dole,
buy fresh homegrown sweet corn to feed thy soul.

About the author:
I am a self-employed graphic and web designer, illustrator, fine artist and writer, combining a degree in English and a love of art, animals and nature to create logos, brochures, websites, portraits and paintings of the things we love and the world around us. While I have had much ?professional? writing published, I have never had any "creative" writing published aside from a poem anthologized my senior year in college, a rather long time between efforts though I've been writing all along. In order to encourage myself and others in writing I moderate a local writer's group so that interested writers can get together once a month and talk about what we're doing as writers.

In addition to art and design, I apply my skills in marketing and promotion both professionally and as a volunteer to social and environmental issues such as animal welfare, local environmental remediation, education and recreation, and business and community development in my hometown of Carnegie, Pennsylvania, in which capacity I am the director of Carnegie Renaissance, a non-profit organization of business owners and residents who are working to beautify and revitalize the downtown area and the borough. It is from all these efforts plus daily life that I draw much of my inspiration.