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And while you're here, enjoy the poem below, with more thanks to Garrison Keillor. Wow, I just realized, it's from the same poet as yesterday's entry. Completely unintentional (and what a lovely surprise). I heard this on The Writer's Almanac months ago, and the images literally made me catch my breath.
Haywire
When I was a kid,
there was always someone old
living with my friends,
a small, gray person
from another century
who stayed in a back room
with a Bible and a bed with silver rails.
They were from a time before the time
the world just plain went haywire,
and even though nothing
made sense to them anymore,
they'd gotten used to it,
and walked around smiling vaguely
at the aliens ruining the galaxy
on the color console television,
or the British invasion
growing from the sides of our heads
in little transistorized boxes.
In the front room, by the light of tv,
we were just starting to get stoned,
and the girls were helping us
help them out of their jeans,
while in the back room
someone very tired
closed her eyes and watched
a wheat field where a boy
whose name she can't remember
is walking down a dusty road.
No sound
but the sound of crickets.
No satellites,
Or even headlights in the distance yet.
by George Bilgere from Haywire
© Utah State University Press.
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