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I debated over whether or not I should post anything of my own, but hey, why not? Here are a few poems I wrote about my memories of Utah.
It snowed on June 18
I remember because I was sleeping in a tent
And I was trapped
And I was cold
Everything was wet and cold and confused.
They dug me out and there was no fire
Nothing to warm me at all
In wet, soggy shoes
One by one they all escaped
Leaving me in the snow, alone.
I don’t remember why.
I went home, finally, aching all over
My mom fed me oatmeal
French toast
Pancakes
Coffee
Bacon
Orange juice and milk
I thought I’d never be warm again.
The snow melted on June 20
I remember because I went for a walk
And the sun pulsed and there wasn’t
A hint of white and we ate pancake on picnic tables.
On June 19 I didn’t like any of them
And I was trapped in a Church
Two miles from my house.
We called it Young Women’s camp and we thought
We’d get closer to God.
I never went again.
Dusk.
Bruised orange sky.
The wet weeds near the ditch.
The water soaked willow trees.
Faint scent of skunks linger on the dogs
Who roll in the manure and hay.
Old leather carries the smell of horse sweat,
Blood, whiskey, dried jerky, and rodeos.
The low hum of the radio fades in and out
It picks up the country stations late at night
Coyotes howl and dogs respond and in the far distance
A horse explodes across the field
Pounding the hard ground with sharp hooves.
There’s a party and we can hear them laughing
And I can’t let go as we fill the wheelbarrows
With oak sawdust shavings. Sharp and sweet and fresh.
Clean. Wide and curled in paper thin sheets. They smell
So strong that I can taste the trees on my tongue.
It gets darker and darker and we just play.
Play in the barn. Play in the sawdust. Play in the ice
Ice cold ditch, water up to our necks.
We sing as loud as we can and nobody hears.
We laugh as hard as we can and nobody hears.
We splash and we bounce, squeal and howl at the moon.
Grandpa pays us a good wage for cleaning the barn.
And sometime before dusk and sheltered dark
We find time to haul a load or two out of the stalls
And get distracted by the blinking lights in the sky.
And a poem not by me...if you remember Mr. William, this poem is featured more than once. I think it's one of my all time favorite poems.
What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I
walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache
self-conscious looking at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into
the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families
shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the
avocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you, Garcia Lorca, what
were you doing down by the watermelons?
I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber,
poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the
grocery boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork
chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans
following you, and followed in my imagination by the store
detective.
We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary
fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and
never passing the cashier.
Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an
hour. Which way does your beard point tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the
supermarket and feel absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees
add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be
lonely.
Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue
automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what
America did you leave when Charon quit poling his ferry and
you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat
disappear on the black waters of Lethe?
It snowed on June 18
I remember because I was sleeping in a tent
And I was trapped
And I was cold
Everything was wet and cold and confused.
They dug me out and there was no fire
Nothing to warm me at all
In wet, soggy shoes
One by one they all escaped
Leaving me in the snow, alone.
I don’t remember why.
I went home, finally, aching all over
My mom fed me oatmeal
French toast
Pancakes
Coffee
Bacon
Orange juice and milk
I thought I’d never be warm again.
The snow melted on June 20
I remember because I went for a walk
And the sun pulsed and there wasn’t
A hint of white and we ate pancake on picnic tables.
On June 19 I didn’t like any of them
And I was trapped in a Church
Two miles from my house.
We called it Young Women’s camp and we thought
We’d get closer to God.
I never went again.
Dusk.
Bruised orange sky.
The wet weeds near the ditch.
The water soaked willow trees.
Faint scent of skunks linger on the dogs
Who roll in the manure and hay.
Old leather carries the smell of horse sweat,
Blood, whiskey, dried jerky, and rodeos.
The low hum of the radio fades in and out
It picks up the country stations late at night
Coyotes howl and dogs respond and in the far distance
A horse explodes across the field
Pounding the hard ground with sharp hooves.
There’s a party and we can hear them laughing
And I can’t let go as we fill the wheelbarrows
With oak sawdust shavings. Sharp and sweet and fresh.
Clean. Wide and curled in paper thin sheets. They smell
So strong that I can taste the trees on my tongue.
It gets darker and darker and we just play.
Play in the barn. Play in the sawdust. Play in the ice
Ice cold ditch, water up to our necks.
We sing as loud as we can and nobody hears.
We laugh as hard as we can and nobody hears.
We splash and we bounce, squeal and howl at the moon.
Grandpa pays us a good wage for cleaning the barn.
And sometime before dusk and sheltered dark
We find time to haul a load or two out of the stalls
And get distracted by the blinking lights in the sky.
And a poem not by me...if you remember Mr. William, this poem is featured more than once. I think it's one of my all time favorite poems.
What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I
walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache
self-conscious looking at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into
the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families
shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the
avocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you, Garcia Lorca, what
were you doing down by the watermelons?
I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber,
poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the
grocery boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork
chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans
following you, and followed in my imagination by the store
detective.
We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary
fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and
never passing the cashier.
Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an
hour. Which way does your beard point tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the
supermarket and feel absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees
add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be
lonely.
Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue
automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what
America did you leave when Charon quit poling his ferry and
you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat
disappear on the black waters of Lethe?