National (Cowboy) Poetry Month

Since this is National Poetry Month and I'm not at USF to clutter people's inboxes with emails for the annual poetry blitz, I thought I would go ahead and include a poem here. One of the first things that Dana did after we brought the kids down was to get a library card and the Independence Public Library. On their first visit, Dana saw a book titled Prairie Poetry: Cowboy Verse of Kansas and checked it out for me to take browse. While some of the poems are stereotypically "cowboy poetry" (i.e., narrative ballads featuring more novelty and/or charm than craft), there were some poems that struck a chord. The poem below, by Tom McBeth, may actually end up working its way into one of the essays I'm working on. It's not a great poem. Many of you may find it a bit pedantic and/or sentimental, but, as one of those "kids" trying to figure out "what to protect," I found the poem resonating with a number of the tensions driving this whole sabbatical thing.


All That's Left

All that’s left is the skeleton windmill;
Its vane is whirling with the changing wind,
Though the waterpump is rusting, silent, still.
All that’s left of self-reliance’s place
Is Grandma’s perennial bed of yellow iris
And the cottonwood shading discarded grace.
All that’s left of the house, barn and shed
Are a few of the hand hewn stones where they sat,
The foundation was strewn as neglect has spread.

All that’s left of then are memories, where
Grandad hung his stained, sweaty working hat
And down to dusk he worked for his welfare.
There was a porcelain pan for the men to wash
Before they ate what Grandma could prepare.
They fed on the worth of giving a good day’s
Work that all their neighbors came to share.
They were the Melting Pot, their families brought
From the Old Country for something that was theirs.

On that first quarter where Grandad was born,
They staked themselves against the prairie’s storms
With anything that sprouted or grew horns.
Now all that’s left of their generation’s need
Is the land where they fulfilled their driven dream,
Where their sweat irrigated freedom’s seed.
So many have forgotten how we came
And the land that gave direction to our way.
So few see that land and freedom are the same.

The homeplace has fallen into neglect,
That taught our folks to do the chores on time
And shut the gates and sweat a wreck’s effect.
Hard times made their families understand
How fiddlers play until the times collect
And there’s a price of freedom on the land.
All that’s left are folks that don’t suspect
How Grandpa’s was the way to harness land
and how our kids must see what to protect.