This series of personal sketches was drawn from the ‘hometown memories’ of students in response to watching Lowell Blues, a short film by Henry Ferrini based on readings from Jack Kerouac’s written recollections of growing up in Lowell, MA.

– Fred Bouchard, Associate Professor of Liberal Arts

 

 

The stars dangle like a child’s mobile in the back of my mind,

A six-year-old’s eyes gaze up at the night sky.

Filled head to toe with the sleepless excitement of being awoken at 4 am,

By Mom and Dad, wrapping me up in scarves, hats, blankets and arms.

To the middle of a field huddled against my sister’s five-year-old body.

We can barely move as we drink hot cocoa from a thermos.

Soldier’s Delight on a cold November night.

The sky is raining meteors. It’s a shower.

 

Four years later in October dinnertime,

through the lattice, gourds and Christmas lights,

you can see the balls of fire waking up from the day.

Tarp walls with maps of elsewhere and happy new years,

It is sukkot and the sky is the only thing that hasn’t changed since

Those forty years spent in the desert.

Except Maryland isn’t Egypt.

 

Teenage mischief in the last breathes of darkness.

Dive in naked, dive in deep,

The water is cold and the air is colder.

The stars are winking as girls giggle.

Another four years past and wrapped in towels.

Skinny and pale in the middle of June,

We watch the sun rise over the suburbs.

 

Bare feet dance over the dewy grass,

We fall to our backs and look up,

Pointing out the constellations.

As our legs are bitten by mosquitoes,

Orion’s belt ties us together.

Sharing secrets, sharing stories,

We sing that “we’re somewhere in the stratosphere”.

That summer we all drank deep from the big dipper.

 

One second you’re walking across the stage diploma in hand,

And a week later you find yourself sitting on the sand.

Intoxicated with possibility.

Waves crashing on everything that was the last twelve years.

In the hot sunshine, in a cool night.

Laying on a green roof inhaling salty air.

You ask me what I think when I look at the stars.

Interrupted by security guards and flashlights.

 

The end of summer and I’m leaving,

Glow in the dark plastic stuck to the ceiling.

The closest the stars will be for the next four winters.

It’s all that I will miss from Reisterstown,

The stars twinkling and winking from their place overhead.

They know more than I will ever understand.