"The Lulling"

"The Lulling"
Darrel Hammon

They made writing look easy–
Steinbeck, Guthrie, Fisher, Conrad,
Stafford, Hemingway, Twain, and the rest

all huddled around their rivers, drinking
their lines from the weeping willows,
tall cottonwoods, and the howl of coyotes

somewhere in the distant mountains.
At full moon, they stared deep into the orange
until the words rose like tides,

fell crashing onto their tablets.
At times, they drank deep from river bottoms,
sucking in verbs and adjectives,

spewing them upon the crowed page.
Sometimes, sitting among the big roots,
they gleaned periods and commas

so they fit just right like a fade pair of 501's
on a weathered saddle bronc rider.
Then, as morning dawned, their writings

climbed from the darkness of dusk,
settled in the last paragraph where
they lulled us into thinking we were there.

I still search for my river, my weeping willow
where I can sense the motion of the wind,
feel of their moaning and groaning, and then have them

brush up against me like my Siamese
lending me the words, the phrases
they had been hoarding for themselves.

The Parting of the Alfalfa

The Parting of the Alfalfa

At seven, I wandered from our new house
to the alfalfa field behind us, lay down,
cuddled close to the ground.
I figured everyone in heaven could see
me lie there, parting the green stems
like Moses did the Red Sea.
I even crossed over into another land,
untouched by bees, trying to find the chosen
purple flower of alfalfa.
From the yard, not even my parents
could see me swallowed up
by that great sea of green and purple.
That day clouds took shape, beyond
the white and gray, to barnyard animals
I dreamed of having, once Dad built the corrals.
Instead of concrete, noisy streets,
I had Spring Creek, the woods,
pheasants, ditch banks, crows, and magpies
crying from the Cottonwoods over by the slough,
and gurgling water, crawling down the alfalfa field,
licking up the dry dirt like the Red Sea did
as Pharaoh’s men clamored through.
And I lay there, singing praises,
soaking up the new country
I had just passed over.