Slosh

Soggy Saturated Agri-Arkansas
Mississippi River delta bog
Last week's sun-bathing fields
are today's temporary aquifers
Impromptu lakes invade outward and
upward irreverent toward civilization
Contemptuous of carpentry of masonry of this
Ribbon of asphalt and rebar conduit of travel

Strips of un-submerged land subdivided
patches of cotton, beans, milo and corn
Gnarled leafless trees, pipe cleaners contorted
into so many wee Zacchaeus perches
Green felt houses rectangular two windows
one door smoke curling upward and eastward
Remnants of pinking-sheer cut colored cloth
Elmer-glued onto grocery-sack covered board

Post harvest cotton stalks shiver inside
oversized Dollar General store galoshes
Community minded pecan trees suddenly
become sullen existential giants
Murky Monsanto flavored Kool-Aid smothers every root
Even the stalwart hawks - red-tailed and sparrow
have abandoned their posts for Folgers and fudge
Only the crayfish and turtles and ducks find any solace
Everything else is huddled back into itself Slosh

But tomorrow will bring a fast food frenzy
for migratory snow geese dropping in to fuel up
on worms driven to the surface of the mire
A rest stop somewhere near Turrell and I55

"Slosh" by Jerry Buckley / Voice of One

Copyrite $#169; 2010 Jerry Buckley / Voice of One