A Wild West Texas Wind

John Garmon

And now you send

Through dislodged thistle

Messages of forlorn gods

Who rode the fenceless plains.

This long shot of retribution

From pioneers who murdered

Native Americans to win this

Language of landscape of desert

Where the wealthy flourish.

See their Winnebago caravans

In convoy moving up the freeways

From Houston to Dallas from tomorrow

To yesterday and all the way back

To Cochise and Geronimo.

A wild west Texas wind blows

Through barren buffalo grass

Made holy by prairie dogs

This far east of El Paso.

Texas has crossed New Mexico,

Amarillo is invading San Antonio.

The wind is blowing hard and hot

In mid-July in dusty sunshine.

Out between Odessa and Midland

The stench of methane whistles

Through barbed wire and odors

Of cow chips blow past oil pumps.

We are all driving long straight

Highways through unpeopled plains,

Watching for circling carrion fowl

To keep moving toward blue mountains.