errol miller
WEST OF NACOGDOCHES
About three miles out of town
on Rural Route 3 there is an exhibition
of artifacts from big mercury ships
who will never cruise the land again
Saratoga is only a cluster of churches
and at Turkey Creek leaflets explain
the early population was swelled
by workers who grew wild
and noisy before departing Westward
later oil was discovered and cross-ties
and barbeque and the country became connected
on Tuesdays at 5pm the local citizens
smooth and dry their rattan vines
and corkscrews and Hercules clubs
lichens hang thick as fog on stone
in April dogwoods bloom by Big Sandy Creek
fire-pink and solitary and flawless
we see beyond a wooden bridge
on which men cannot walk, tall
and graceful, depending on your vantage point
a woman in her 70's going back for generations
to carry Sunday dinner to those who wait
in unfamiliar fields unattended
there is an upright piano and no music
candied carrots and all-around good
no one ever need apologize
for the harm they have done
passing the gravy and mashed potatoes
the broad sky has turned orange
Houston is fantastic, the delicate
country folks though shameless enough
are kindly obsessed with circus posters
and supper at a long walnut table
a roadhouse would be better
taking our tripod lens to photograph
enormous mobs of stormy cattle
scrub brush and shadows
when you come to a crossroads
many of the paths will look the same
the groves of poplar and the badlands
and the skull-marked trail to Amarillo
creating geography of the unknown earth
about four miles away Alice Springs
shimmers in a coming Glacier Age
dingo donkey between Alice and the Rocks
there is a sweet interlude
a campground with a supermarket
before the next wave if immigrants
begin passing southwestern
across the desert.
