For today’s prompt, write a new world poem.

From the New World

Dvorak’s Ninth could have only been written in America,
far from his Bohemian home of mountains and forests.
Clear-cut farmlands from New York to Iowa, wide open spaces
inspired music to be played under summer stars.

Location informs creation, the way airborne yeast
infect the sourdough starter or stormy castle nights
with Byron and Shelley conceive Frankenstein.

Going home triumphant to Europe,
his reputation confirmed,
Dvorak would never leave Bohemia again.

I’ve been to Iowa but never Spillville,
where he completed the symphony
except when I listen through his ears
and then I’m native.