We're visiting the Lone Star State for the first time -- spending time with family who moved to Dallas a few months back. Spent a morning in lovely Chisolm Park and found a letterbox (our first!)
Out of the Blue
But for the three of us,
the park that day was deserted.
Mom meant no harm
and said she was just kidding
when, out of the blue,
she sped off in the Buick
and left me and my little brother
stranded on the blanket
we’d spread for a picnic.
Beyond the elm-shaded acres
of Cole Park, in far West Texas,
the flat red earth
ran unobstructed for miles
in all four directions
all the way to the horizon.
Sam clutched his teddy bear
and started crying.
I stood in my white,
suspendered shorts
and watched the car
dissolve in a cloud of dust.
Since it's National Poetry Month, I've been wondering about Texan poets. The state has a long standing poets' laureate program. The current poet laureate of Texas is Larry D. Thomas. His webpage has some amazing poems -- love the sensory details, his attention to landscape.
Because we were just with the park with my young niece, here is Thomas's poem, "Out of the Blue" --
Out of the Blue
But for the three of us,
the park that day was deserted.
Mom meant no harm
and said she was just kidding
when, out of the blue,
she sped off in the Buick
and left me and my little brother
stranded on the blanket
we’d spread for a picnic.
Beyond the elm-shaded acres
of Cole Park, in far West Texas,
the flat red earth
ran unobstructed for miles
in all four directions
all the way to the horizon.
Sam clutched his teddy bear
and started crying.
I stood in my white,
suspendered shorts
and watched the car
dissolve in a cloud of dust.Read the rest of the poem here: http://www.larrydthomas.com/poems.htm. You might also like the humor in Thomas's "The Red Raging Waters," which can be found on the same page.
While they're having freak 1-minute blizzards back home in Charm City, we'll be enjoying the 80 degree weather here in Dallas. See y'all!
Hey Laura,
ReplyDeleteI used to live in Fort Worth, Texas (1973-1975) and I was a member of the Texas Girls' Choir founded and directed by the fabulous Shirley Carter. See www.texasgirlschoir.org I'm in the middle in the back row in the group photo from 1975. I recognize the girls in the photo because we toured together on the Texas Girls' Choir tour of Europe in the summer of 1975 just before our family relocated to Columbia, Maryland and I enrolled as a freshman at Oakland Mills High School (Class of 1979).
You reminded me of Texas when you made this post today.
Thanks!
Glad you liked it, Denee! I hadn't heard of Larry D. Thomas, but I like the poems he has posted on his site very much. Powerful, insightful work. I love the poem about the storm flood & its affects on a church
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