SOMETIMES LUCKY
…a gusher of poems
that poured out of the house
on Highland Street
and watered the town
-Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel
(“The Gusher, 5-12-89,” A PRINCE ALBERT WIND)
What of science soothes the souls
that haunt the draws and ridges
for a song, for the rhythmic chant
of wind and rain - the storm
that softens their way of going
through time? How they long
to suggest sounds that open clouds
to natural grace, to resonate
with being born once more.
A contrail's white streak east
at dawn dissolves in minutes
over Nevada's great timeless
underwater basin risen
to an endless sea of sage afoot
that can climb into your mind,
read thoughts and forever wait for
passing mortals – sometimes lucky
to hitch a ride on a poem.
Poem notes:
Edit: 5/13 – I’ve tried to smooth it up, eliminate two lazy dependent clauses and the pauses that interrupted the flow I think I want.
Though I don’t know the green-eyed poet whose writing had dried-up for months in Modesto, I love the notion that the poet saw “his stubborn right hand” was the cause and the solution to the drought in 1989, (a year we had to sell a bunch of our brood cows). He then “grabbed his ballpoint/pen and wrote two days/and nights/a gusher of poems” that temporarily saved us all.
No magic that a poet needs to explain, natural grace and poetry are spiritually connected like rain and plenty. With family and friends, her subjects are the spirits of the Dust Bowl Okies with whom we connect, neither perfect nor villains, but human (and perhaps other) souls that have become part of her San Joaquin Valley, a part of any place with history and natural landmarks left where these souls can connect with the poet - and storyteller for that matter. Far-out stuff? Not for a poet; not for a cowboy constantly connecting-up the unexplainable. How nice not to take all the credit for a poem, a vehicle perhaps that works both ways!
5/18 - slight edit towards rhythm and sound
5/26 - forsook the "steep clay way" and acquiesced to the triteness of "going" for a smoother rhythm. Let it sit awhile.