Recounting Dreams

Milton Jordan

September 24, 2023

Hearing too many real reminders

of too many interrupted dreams,

we settled in one humid afternoon 

along the Lower Neches to recount 

the dreams, ignore the interruptions 

and tally the numerous stops we’ve made     

during this fifty year journey.

We sought at first to catalog the towns

where we’d lived, but on second thought

limited that too long list to three year

or longer stays, and even then debated

the order of our fourth and fifth riversides,  

but gave up the count for supper around six 

and listened to an Astros game at seven.

Milton Jordan lives with Anne in Georgetown, Texas. He co-edited the first Texas Poetry Assignment anthology, Lone Star Poetry, Kallisto Gaia Press, 2022.

Illegals

Jeanie Sanders

September 17, 2023

In Big Bend in the 1960s stepping

from one country into another

wasn’t even marked

by the distance a shadow makes

on the flow of the River.

Nor marked by a body

half washed by the trickle of water

with one shoe to make the marker.

A man in his mid twenties but then

who can tell after time.

Not the River as its slow inch deep current

drags at his hair.

Our shadows cover the width of

the River he died in.

What’s in his pockets?

A loved one’s picture or

rose petals from home

coming to life again in the water.

His hand reaching out

one foot in the old world

one foot in the new.

Jeanie Sanders is a poet and collage artist.  She lives in Lytle, Texas.  Her poems have been published in The Texas Observer, San Antonio Express-News, Texas Poetry Calendar, Passager, La Voz de Esperanza, and several anthologies. She has two books of poetry, The Book of the Dead: Poems and Photographs and The Dispossessed.

Counting the Numbers Home

Thomas Hemminger

September 10, 2023

Thirty-four miles of traffic lights, 

express lanes, and bumper-to-bumper.

Nineteen miles of road work, 

new home construction, and passing or being passed. 

Fifteen miles of open prairieland, 

a visible horizon, and the slow detoxification from city cares. 

Eleven miles of old town squares,

blinking yellow traffic lights, and the aroma of sweet grass drifting through my window. 

Five miles of two-lane highways, 

gravel roads, corn fields and cow pastures.

Fifteen hundred feet of a shallow creek, 

a ten-foot ranch gate, and a rocky driveway.

Seventy-three steps of a truck door closing, 

a farm dog running, and a front door opening. 

Ten steps to a warm embrace,

a savory smell in the air, and perfect peace of mind. 

One moment to remember, 

a place in the soul, and a treasure of the heart.  

Thomas Hemminger is an elementary music teacher living in Dallas, Texas. His personal hero is Mr. Fred Rogers, the creator of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. It was through America’s favorite “neighbor” that Thomas learned of the importance of loving others, and of giving them their own space and grace to grow.

Highway 124, after a death

John Rutherford

September 3, 2023

When the great-aunt died, we seized the day,

used up some banked vacation-leave,

and drove down Highway 124.

We passed through Cheek, Fannett,

and Hamshire, kept on going

past the farms and teeming bayous.

As the trees shrank into brush,

the combover on the balding dunes,

we stopped at the sargassum-orange sea, the beach.

Barefoot we stalked the sand,

seashells crunching beneath our feet,

watching the waves off Highway 124.

We stayed an hour, perhaps a little more,

saying our farewells where she’d be scattered,

our tears spent, returning home among the green.

John Rutherford works in the English Department at Lamar University. His work can be found in the Concho River Review and The Basilisk Tree.