Reminiscing Coarsegold, California 1937
- for Sam Peckinpah
There will come a day, of course,
when the wood dies down,
when the hearth sits heavy with cold,
when the cord turns into a simple sweep
of old bark,
when the porch itself becomes pitted and loose
and its boards beg to be smoke.
We were born lean.
We lean toward the lean.
How do we ask for more than the love
of one good woman –
whether mother or lover,
a sturdy truck we wish was a horse,
and enough split wood stacked like bounty
at the door?
All the whiskey in the world
won’t make a man warm enough
when his mind goes out wandering in December.
It comes back frostbit,
and words like Christmas seem to be
something he needs to hold onto,
but just twists grey above the chimney.
There is a Season here.
There are two pages of the Bible I know.
Sometimes the holidays are nothing more
than deciding to go at it another year
with a new bottle,
and a good heavy coat,
and the cadence of an axe
that syncs just right in the hand.
karla k. morton
karla k. morton is a National Heritage Wrangler Award winner, a Spur Award, and a Foreword Indies National Book Award winner. She’s a member of the Texas Institute of Letters, and on the historic 1914 Shuler Theater Restoration Committee. She’s the 2010 Texas Poet Laureate and Nominee for the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame.