Southern Legitimacy Statement: I went through the Marine Corps boot camp at Paris Island, South Carolina in 1969. I married a Texan from Brownsville, and you cannot get much further south than that. We had a hound named “Dog,” and a dog, named “Cow.” I am a published poet, thanks to God’s favor, but I haven’t forgotten where I came from or the people I still love.
Back Down
Memory of Cindy Bohna
It’s early June
while I saddle up Doc.
We are gathering
Tony and Cindy Bohna’s cattle
and moving them
to higher grazing land.
Cindy rides off heading north . . .
Three of us are plowing
through thick brush
and looking for strays.
Doc doesn’t go any faster
than I want him to go~
though I sense him stir
and tug against the reins,
wanting to join the others.
As I glance at tiny red
and yellow wildflowers
close to the ground,
a mule deer hides among
the shaded bull pines,
nibbling on sweet grass,
and lifts and extends her neck
listening to our horses shuffle.
Then she leaps off
like she’s chasing the sun.
My husband and Tony
reach a daunting cliff~
It is split revealing daylight.
Twin towers of rock upon rock
straight up to eternity.
The complexion of this ride
has changed. . . .
I know about bottomless bogs
that appear harmless,
but can pull you down
into the sinking mud.
The men start to climb
while pulling out cigarettes
and telling jokes. I hold on
and Doc digs his hooves in.
We lope higher and higher
as pieces of granite crack
and fall, echoing back down.
The men finish their smokes,
and the horses turn
and start back down.
Red Appy
I had an unreasonable red
Appy I called Sister.
She used to stand along
the wooden fence line,
cribbing and horsing around
like a stumbling-block between us.
I gave her all the love,
and attention
one could give a horse.
She was green broke,
and had a nasty disposition,
as if she was half-mule.
I knew that Appaloosas
were stubborn in nature.
So I found her a horse whisperer
because I was ill-qualified.
The time came though
when belonging reigned.
I had to give her her own head.
There was no room to agree
to disagree on her part.
Nothing I would do or say
would change her mind.
I sold her to a barrel-racer,
or so she claimed.
She was confident in training,
and taming any horse.
But the last thing I heard
about that filly of mine,
she kicked a fine horseshoer
square in the chest
with both hind feet.
FireFlies
As I watch
our granddaughter, Jocelyn Rose,
squeeze her glow worm
and whine for her Mama,
before she dozes off for a nap,
it rekindles memories of fireflies
during the midsummer
on warm and humid nights
in Hagerstown, Maryland,
when nothing else mattered,
except for our Father carousing.
We’d watch with wonder,
these winged lightning bugs,
flying about, up-and-down,
flashing their light throughout
the dark yards on Pot lickers flats.
My brother would run past us
hugging his glowing mason jar.
Our Mother’s mood would change
between long dreary seasons.
If only I could have been
a firefly pinned to her collar
on cold lonely evenings.
But on those summer nights
when the sparks of fire came out,
she was happy beyond reason,
watching fireflies glow
like they held tiny lanterns up
searching for their mates,
and knowing it was closing time.
