Remember the Red River Valley
No girls to love you so true out here,
not even a movie theater anywhere near.
But you can get a gas station lunch
of salty ham and cheese on white or pizza
that has a local name. The Holiday Station
even has a little dining area labeled a café,
and clean restrooms and what else
do you really need? Not trees.
Not lawns. Not streams. Birds of course,
and Mike and Linda have driven here
to show me the impoundments – artificial lakes
that are catnip to migrating birds
needing to rest and get a snack
before heading on up to Canada.
They’re just passing through and don’t care
for the family plots we pass.
each waiting for us to open one more spot
so it can swallow the next family member.
The last time we came
this far west it was to see Kevin
go into a mouth just like this,
opened then closed
in the face of the flat, black earth.
It’s up on a little hill and there are precious few
out here in the Valley.
At least he won’t feel the wind, still
blowing cold in May or the rusty hinge
call of the Prairie Larks. His father lies by his side.
His brother handed their infant son to his wife
and left to go back to harrowing
their 1000 acres or was it 5000?
Iris and I stood with his mother and
a few other family friends in the middle
of the Black Desert to say good-bye,
to Kevin but mostly to each other.