Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry
Poetry of the People
“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”
A stone cast from the sky by the gods
Landed in her garden next to a purple turtle
Because it was the only color
Of paint available at the time, not the stone,
Which was the color of a missed connection,
But the turtle which had been art and crafted
In bright kelly green and egg yellow,
Hideous amidst the spearmint, which even weedy,
Knew a gaudy neighbor when it saw one. Continue reading “Etymology in the Morning”
Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry 