Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry
Poetry of the People
Ken and I just spent the weekend at Beavers Bend State Park, and we stayed in cabin 4. The cabin was small and cozy with a fireplace and good heat. It was a bit chilly, though just fine for hiking weather. We went on some trails, searched for a few geocaches, and enjoyed the park’s natural beauty and silence. Continue reading “Poetic Vandalism”
“Normally this formation weathers out along high, narrow, and short ridges that in airplane view resemble the convolutions of calves’ brains.”
–Oklahoma Geological Survey, Beavers Bend State Park Guide Book XI, 1963
The Choctaw knew this land,
Knew the way it could be lived on,
The way it could be wasted
–as a kill is wasted for sport
–as a life is wasted, as is the tree, as is the heart. Continue reading “Convolutions of Calves’ Brains”
We wait for the crabgrass and dandelions and wild onion
To shuffle aside the fall leaves, our feet crunching
What has died, our attention focused on sun and wind,
The beauty of not-yet-spring, oh but almost, almost. Continue reading “Almost, Almost”
I opened the gate, walked into the garden
Rust flaked off in my hands
Sifting the dust
To put out the air
Squeeze my eyes shut to open to
Statues
Angel wings, a maiden
This urn
I smelled it from the garden gate Continue reading “Mordred”
One of my favorite memories from childhood was when our Mom made a treasure hunt for our birthday party (my sister Kelly and I share the same birthday—born same day a year apart). I remember particularly getting to the end of it and finding one of those wild-haired troll dolls in the wellhouse. Continue reading “Poem Caching”
“And thus the land of Cameliard was waste,
Thick with wet woods, and many a beast therein,
And none or few to scare or chase the beast;
So that wild dog, and wolf and boar and bear
Came night and day, and rooted in the fields.”
From “The Coming of Arthur”
Lord Alfred Tennyson
There is no gentle wildness
In the land of wolf-like men.
There is no—
Wait, can you smell that?
Bitter as pokeberry
Tasting like mean vowels
The scent of a snarl Continue reading “Arthur Before”
Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry 