Your Favorite Poems

Hollylane · 02-17-2013, 10:21 PM

Odessa
by Patricia Kirkpatrick

I drove through Sacred Heart and Montevideo,
over the Chippewa River, all the way to Madison.
When I stopped, walked into grass—
bluestem, wild rose, a monarch—
I was afraid at first. Birds I couldn't identify
might have been bobolinks,
non-breeding plumage.
I am always afraid of what might show up, suddenly.
What might hide.
At dusk I saw the start of low plateaus, plains
really, even when planted. Almost to the Dakota border
I was struck by the isolation and abiding loneliness
yet somehow thrilled. Alone. Hardly another car on the road
and in town, just a few teenagers
wearing high school sweatshirts, walking and laughing, on the edge
of a world they don't know.
Darkness started as heaviness in the colors
of fields, a tractor, cornstalks, stone.
I turned back just before the Prairie Wildlife Refuge
at Odessa, the place I came to see. Closed.
Empty. The moon rose. Full.
I was driving Highway 7, the "Sioux Trail:"
I could feel the past the way I could in Mexico,
Mayan tombs in the jungle at Palenque,
men tearing papers from our hands.
Three hours still to drive home.

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02-17-2013, 10:21 PM	#17
Hollylane Practically Lives Here How Do You Identify?: . Preferred Pronoun?: . Relationship Status: . Join Date: Jun 2011 Location: . Posts: 11,495 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 34,694 Thanked 26,362 Times in 5,875 Posts Rep Power: 21474862	Odessa by Patricia Kirkpatrick I drove through Sacred Heart and Montevideo, over the Chippewa River, all the way to Madison. When I stopped, walked into grass— bluestem, wild rose, a monarch— I was afraid at first. Birds I couldn't identify might have been bobolinks, non-breeding plumage. I am always afraid of what might show up, suddenly. What might hide. At dusk I saw the start of low plateaus, plains really, even when planted. Almost to the Dakota border I was struck by the isolation and abiding loneliness yet somehow thrilled. Alone. Hardly another car on the road and in town, just a few teenagers wearing high school sweatshirts, walking and laughing, on the edge of a world they don't know. Darkness started as heaviness in the colors of fields, a tractor, cornstalks, stone. I turned back just before the Prairie Wildlife Refuge at Odessa, the place I came to see. Closed. Empty. The moon rose. Full. I was driving Highway 7, the "Sioux Trail:" I could feel the past the way I could in Mexico, Mayan tombs in the jungle at Palenque, men tearing papers from our hands. Three hours still to drive home.