TURN, TURN, TURN

It’s rained like I can’t remember

and the Llano Estacado is green

in a million hues. Even the steep red

walls of every ravine cascade in new

growth where some off-kilter seeds

have lain in wait for what must be

decades.

My eyes puzzle out these

unfamiliar pixels, and are confused

because all the browns and ambers

have dissolved into a verdant joy.

My nose runs and my

clothes drip saline in this

thick humidity.

But look at my garden,

lush with peas and beans

conquering the fence

More squash than we’ll eat

in a year; huge, yellow crooknecks

and giant zucchinis where there were

none just last night.

The ranchers with their whole

sections reach for the sky

with soy, cotton and corn they

don’t have to irrigate in mile wide

circles. And the cattle graze

everywhere you look across pastures

too arid any other year.

Oldtimers can’t remember when

it was ever like this, and shake

their heads when I ask.

Twenty years ago the drought was

twenty years old, so I’ve never seen

the reservoirs so full, or water in the

Salt Fork of the Red River,

but there it is and those cows dip their

udders in deep, blue ponds

I never knew were there.

Yesterday, my neighbor, Starla,

gave us some cucumbers from her

over abundance, because I forgot

to plant my own, and we talked over

the fence. She’d been a ranch cook

for years across from T. Boone Pickens’

place, and she knows a thing or two.

The sky was cloudy and there was thunder

in the distance with dark rain fifteen miles

to the north. She shook her head,

said, “With all this tall grass and weeds,

when the rain is over, the fires

will be terrible.

And they were.

Reviews

[redzone]

It's interesting how things change, isn't it. Everything changes, nothing is left untouched. I think your poem describes this artistically. Thank you for sharing.
-Curt