THE TRIP OUT

On a Greyhound
headin' out past every place
I was sure to pass
again a hundred times.
Let out of Amarillo
and floatin' right under
the clouds--past Claude and
Clarendon and Childress.

Up front sat Will
recallin' how it was
when all twelve of 'em
grew up in the depression
and now spread to the wind,
But Mama still in Quanah.

Sammy, across the aisle,
in a real gray-green uniform,
on his way home to Vernon,
let me look at little
school pictures of his
sister and brother--
fine white smiles in
rich black faces.

In Wichita Falls,
the Preacher came aboard,
holdin' the hand of
a tiny blue-eyed girl.
He was takin' her home,
he said, to her Granma, in
Denton county.  She'd
been picked up by her Daddy
at school and he'd taken her
half-way 'cross the state
'for the Rangers got him.
He'd been on the run for over
a month, and her grandfolks'd
been worried sick!

After Bowie, Lazda told us
about that gothic castle on
Decatur's hill and the
old gray woman who comes out
every morning at ten
on her balcony between the
twin spires to make a
speech to anyone or anything
(real or imagined)
who can hear her.
She ends it every time by
firing her double barelled
shotgun, then turns and
goes in to wait
until tomorrow.
Lazda said oldtimers
could recall parties they used
to have up there...once even had
a Ball and invited the Governor.
Why, she said, it was their
slaves who quarried the stones used to
build that monstrous courthouse
which still holds dominion, just
as the family always had
until they all died off--
all but the old gray lady
and her younger sister.
That same sister, well past
thirty, ran off to Houston with
some Midland oilman and left
the town to whoever'd have it.

That long tale brought us in
sight of Dallas which looked like a
Camelot kingdom, and
statewide was reputed to house
oil and cattle barons
computer castles, exchange towers
and the only decent dress store
in the whole damned state.





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