Or someone’s word for it
Was the name of my early place.
A dirt-blown, wind swept
Kind of a town
It’s name really should have been
BROWN.
Seasons of sand, snow, and wind
Shrilled through starry nights alone,
Defied by a few rare elms
Growing green in front of
Yesterday’s homes.
I remember
Bits of straw,
Sun-dried grass,
And tumbleweeds racing
Always chased by the wind.
Out from the town on those endless plains
The blowing wheat bent down too
While that great sky provided all there was
And all we ever knew.
© Gay Reiser Cannon. All Rights Reserved
This poem was published in 2006 in Bright Star Magazine
another great piece of texas...and once again beautifully written..you are very good at capturing scene..cheers pete
ReplyDeleteBy what name
ReplyDeleteyou called that town
Didn’t matter it was home
Wind-blown dirt, shrilling
with an elm leaf some called dancing
still it danced around what you called home
On starry nights, you could see dreams faraway winking
As sun-dried grass and tumbleweeds raced across dark fields
of a place you thought would always be your home
Wheat with full-bloomed heads bent low
waving to the wind rushing by with bits of straw
lifting them high into that great sky that watched over you home
************
Home is it where you lay your head or where you heart lives?
desk49
ReplyDeleteYou dwarf me. I think your response was better than the original. Such honor you give me! Thank you.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI know you meant I dwarfed my other post in here.
ReplyDeleteThere's no way I could dwarf your poem in either post.
My reply is just how I feel about your work. If my reply was good then yours was great to bring that kind of feeling out of me.
Your words inspired me to write and nothing could be a greater gift than that.
I should be thanking you.
Beautiful imagery. I can see the place.
ReplyDeleteAnd that photo. I just had to sit and look at it for a while. :)
The imagery is great going with those lovely words...
ReplyDeletesuja
Thank you. I think everyone who reads this feels a little of that town going through a windy, sandy drought but filled with dreams symbolized by the expansive sky.
ReplyDeleteWe just got back from a trip to Idaho, through Nevada and eastern Oregon - similar views though much drier than your photo. I have never been through that kind of country before, and it was quite an experience. Your poem captured everything I saw, and explained the answer to my question: why would anyone want to live there? I too was captured by the sky's expanse - I love the way you worded it - this was a beautiful, stunning poem
ReplyDeleteCompletely love this poem, it is practically perfect in every way. I adore the first verse which stands alone in many ways and also the closing two lines: "While that great sky provided all there was / And all we ever knew", it just says so much about growing up in a rural farming community and your horizons.
ReplyDeleteLibby
Yes'm. My grandpa--everyone called him, Bunk--was fond of saying the Texas panhandle was the only place you could stand knee-deep in mud and have sand blow in your face.
ReplyDeleteI used to spend a week or so with my cousin in Borger, and the wind bout drove me crazy. It would be howlin through the windows when we'd go to sleep, and it would be howling when we woke up.
We'd play baseball in the vacant lot behind the house, and if you hit a short high pop up to straight-away cener field, it woul come back to you, and you could just shuffle around and hit it again.
(You realize I just wrote a poem, don't ya.) Copy and paste time!
Thanks for sharing the "yellow" poem. I like it!