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Volleyball

My Writing

"Kate"

"Rain Water Rolls"

"Revenge of the Poet"

"Winter Snows"

                                                       Kate     

                     Willowy in white,
                     Long, brown legs and lace garter hidden beneath
                     sheer tulle and smooth satin,
                     Pearls in your ears, around your sleek neck,
                     You smile at me when I snap pictures as the
                     local pro changes rolls of film.

                     Once I wheeled you around the yard in our prairie schooner -
                     a red wagon outfitted with two back to back cardboard boxes
                     covered with an old sheet - 
                     and we pitched tents across clothesline near the chicken barn.
                     We swam in a round stock tank after
                     painting the grain shed or picking potato bugs.
                     We'd step into the cool water and then walk as
                     fast as we could, circling the tank over and over and over,
                     until we'd finally fall under,
                     letting the current whirl us into childhood oblivion.
                     When we organized our own track meets using lawn chairs
                     as hurdles, you, all gangling legs and wild hair,
                     sprinted around the gravel driveway,
                     passing me like all the opponents that were to come,
                     feeling the exhilaration of the dusky summer air.

                     At the front of the country church,
                     I see you in white, turning according to
                     the photographer's directions,
                     ready to accept a new name, a new life,
                     ready to continue around your own circle.
                     And I remember, Kate, our prairie childhood.

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Rain Water Rolls

Before morning chores,
I drive the red Honda four-wheeler toward the mailbox,
Mud spitting up on the edges of my jeans.
Rain water rolls across the low driveway,
Flooding the north and south ditches,
Creating a crude lake that extends across the last two hundred feet of driveway
And into the ten-acre bean fields on each side,
Coating plants in a gray film.
By now our four-week old Holstein heifer calves
Stand in soggy straw beneath the white barn’s hole-riddled roof.
But before I tend to them,
I lift the camera hanging by its black strap around my neck
From the protection of my gray sweatshirt
And snap photos of one side of the driveway,
Then the next,
Commemorating the four inches of rain in a matter of early morning hours,
Contemplating when we’ll be dry again.

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 Blue
lines
smirk,
taunting
my
pen
to
compose
words
so
sweet
they
stick
between
the
lines

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Canadians against the slate blue sky, fly low,
Wings whirring over corn stalk remains
covered with three inches of new snow.
They’re a bit tardy,
But winter is not. 

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