for k.c.c.k (9.19.68-1.7.13)
It will always be
winter as we walk down the dirt road with our chapped hands shoved in the
pockets of our little checkered blue jeans
The wind is so cold
it bites the delicate membranes inside our noses,
and our eyes sting
in the bitter air
Geese clap into
flight
We dare each other
to touch the teeth in the grim smiles
of dead coyotes hung
along the barbed wire
For some reason these are the things I vividly recall from our life in the old hotel on the plains
I remember your birth-
the fear I held
within me that you would come
and break my heart
It will always be
your call that wakes me up in the middle of the night,
Baby brother
child of straw hair
and blue eyes
What does it mean to
you now?
Can you hear the
songs I sing when I am lonely or
the prayers I
whisper in early morning dark?
Do you think of the
cold, the rasp of dry bluestem, the sweet early morning call of the Sandhill
Cranes passing overhead while we sleep, warm in our beds, just children,
safe
