Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry
Poetry of the People
Molly tells me you can read
Your fortune in the bathtub:
Run out, count the stars, then
Lock yourself in the bathroom, turn
Off the lights, and you’ll see
Your grave in the bathtub—I did.
But she must be lying.
Oh what I wouldn’t give
For a nickel and a dime
And a cherry with a seed
Inside to crack my teeth upon.
I’m going home, home,
On my way home. Continue reading “Name This Poem”
“The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with objects it loves.”
Carl Jung’s words illustrate the importance of play in our lives. From it come the things that make our lives worth living: the art, the dreams, the visions, the connections, the experiences that bring us joy and heartache and shape the people we become.
I have fond memories of the play that took up so much of my childhood. We did not have structured play time, rarely went to camp or to parks or recreational areas, yet I never felt as if I were missing anything. We had the whole world to explore—through riding bikes to the creek or just around the neighborhood, listening to records, exploring the woods behind the house, making tents out of blankets thrown over the clothesline, reading books on the cool concrete of the hillside cellar roof. Continue reading “I Went Out to Play”
When I was a little girl,
We had houses of shade
Spaced along the road
Where the sycamores
And elms waved to us,
Their branches longer
Than time, leaves wider
Than space, our hearts
Scary with sunshine
Too explosive to contain. Continue reading “The Necessary”
We parked the truck and stepped out
Onto the road that used to be a highway
Of my childhood, winding through Mayes County
To the Grand River bluffs, where my mother
Said hobos made cave camps and where a train
Ran a solitary line amidst the blackjack
And sawbriar. I am holding your hand. Continue reading “Holding Your Hand”
So once upon a time
When we bricked rectangles of hay
into our houses, we suffered acne
and the dream of escape,
A stepfather who smothered your smile,
The deadness of hours never ours.
Open your heart.
Open your heart. Continue reading “The Adult’s Song”
In the rusted brown Chevy truck,
You explore the back roads of my childhood
With me, the creeks chilling my youth,
The ditch where I fell over on my bike
After a day in the sun. I lay there
In the poison ivy shade of scrub oaks
Until my head stopped spinning, Continue reading “The Water Between Us”
Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry 