Poetry

for homesteaders Linnie, Allie & Minyard Cornell Who now can read the writing of the plow upon that distant hill? I have seen winter work its will upon that page, and works it still. This is the prairie of the lie, Jim Hill’s ‘Rain every spring, grain where it falls,...

for Tim Pilgrim, who is a real poet -- The river road winds like a boy’s path home, a boy rich in imagination who finds in every stone some brave’s thumbprint, in every bush the trapped curves of a Longhorn steer. I have been captive to that desire, known the torment...

He came too close to evening; at the lick’s edge, a flash of flag shifted dusky landscape with a queer white. Patient vigil paid off. An aiming –a life spent preparing for split-seconds– could not miss this accident. Red blood spurted hard, a heart shot’s certain...

She is festive October, summer in husk and rouge. All sign points again to birthday weather, to ragged celebration and the odd gift. Ribbons dull and curl on the limb where the hawk huddles. Puffs of gray fur dance crazily where the fox prowls for slow mice. Late...