These are pictures I took of my visual journal spread I did for this piece. A visual journal is a cross between a scrapbook and a journal for poems, stories, memories, or in this case assignments I find are better represented in a creative outlet. I used pictures I took while at the Penn Center and incorporated the map of the grounds, flowers I took from the grounds, and patterns and elements I found suitable to create imagery to accompany the poem I wrote in this spread.

Poem

Remember me
not just in the pictures
not only in the words
remember me in being here,
recall the landscapes curves
of my hips; my body may lie
beneath these hills
bones twisted among the roots
but I still see you clearly
feel your footsteps upon my familiar earth.

I’m not just in the paneling,
the buildings, cottages, and school,
peering through window panes
I’m the yellow jasmine blooms,
the pages of books in worn out rooms,
the tables and chairs in which you rest,
the wind you feel –
I am in your breath.

I am not a selective aid to memory
I am all –
every leaf, every tree
every blade of grass you see
not just the stone structure with faceless memory.

Remember my essence
in everything.
I am not gone,
I do not cease to be. 

Accompanying Statement to Poem

I chose to do a poem because I have always been fond of writing, so the excuse to create a poem from this field trip to the Penn Center was very exciting for me. I stuck with the theme of “remembrance” because on the bus ride to the Penn Center our group read very interesting articles on the importance of relationships with places and how certain landscapes can acquire meaning, in which certain places trigger acts of self-reflection. On this trip I found myself thinking not only of the school and center themselves as noteworthy places to reflect but of the physical earth itself, the very living, breathing, continuing ground that still grows and flourishes to this day. To me, the people who inhabited Penn Center and all of those who were a part of it will always be a part of it and that their essence there will be forever present in the scenery.