Growing up in Lubbock,
Child of dust storms,
There were years when all of my memories
Were shaped by wind:
Nightmares were tumble-weeded and dust-deviled;
Hounded by prairie dogs
Into their safe haven underground
Dark and deeply labyrinth-ed.
We had weeks when the sun
Was weakened to a pallid moon.
Even at midday I could stare into it
Without tears, without sneezing,
If I could open my eyes.
When I had to walk into the wind
I invented a way of walking – backwards,
Glancing over my shoulders.
For years soon after cotton fields were plowed,
Maize and sorghum were seeded,
The wind would rise, lifting topsoil
And some of the tiny kernels of hope
In the dark skirts of sand storms,
Destroying farmers’ fantasies of tall green stalks.
The winds would start in spring,
Blow through August,
Until finally in October
They would die, and rain would wash the air clean.
On quieter days during those dirty months
The sky would fade from blue to dun to tan to brown,
Smudging with the horizon, inseparable,
Woven together, sharing strands of warp and weft.
But for all of the ugliness,
With so much silt in the atmosphere,
I remember even 50 years later
The sunsets so brilliant with colors,
Hues we have no names for –
Mottled grayish purple, coral-pink,
Cinnabar-salmon, rose-vermilion –
The variegated clouds still ribbon through my dreams.
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