Selected Poems
This page is under construction. In the meantime, a rotating poem:
As on the First DayHackberries bend the light, clumped scrub
beneath them prodigal with edge and thorn,
dust sifting cool and fine between bare toes.
The lead cow found her way here
fifty years ago, the others plodding
after. You want to follow
as on the first day, not knowing
the twists and turns beyond, just
agarita, huisache, mesquite, the dapple
of shadow and sun, ahead
the stir of something cryptic—
like an alphabet for mockingbirds,
their vibrant language jumbled—
a voice not quite remembered,
the lilt of German rippling easy
Texas vowels, bright chorus
of Grandma and her widow friends
at home over coffee and cake.
Imagine breath against a windowpane.
Touch the vapor warm against the cool
glass, step back and watch your fingerprint
for the moment that it lasts, the imprint
of breath against the reedy
instrument humming in her throat:
Gone. Except in dreams that yield
to waking stillness, to mossy branches
sifting ambered afternoon, pools of paleness
lapping the shadows here, a trail
unfurling homeward through
bottomland silt of the Agua Dulce.
Caliche Road Poems (Lamar University Literary Press, 2020)