West Texas Tears Poem by Bill Galvin

West Texas Tears



The drive from Amarillo toward New Mexico
Takes about an hour.

I’ve been with family, yours and mine,
For most of my journey up till now.

After two days with only my thoughts,
There is an eruption of emotion,
When songs of ours begin pecking at memory,
Never ending, like those wind turbines
Spinning day and night in the prairie winds.
Wide vistas comprise my locale;
And long lonely highways are my venue.
I attempt a sing along; but choke on the lyric.
My heart aches deep down for you, Deb,
As I drive along, drowning in West Texas tears.

Lord, you know, I kept her as long as I could;
But, you needed her more, and she needed rest;
And, I guess, you and she decided it was time.
I thank you for the moment when she left this plane;
The moment she smiled at me,
While I held her hand in mine.
I weep my loss;
But rejoice your gain, and her benefit.
I just need a canopy of sorts to cover me,
And warm me from this chilly misery.

On into New Mexico,
The tamed prairie turns into mesa lands,
With scrub trees more numerous
With rising elevation and more rainfall,
As I drive more northerly to the mountain forests.
These trees grow larger as I drive higher.
They turn desert hillsides almost green,
Instead of shades of reddish-gray-brown.

I suddenly sense that all these round bushy trees
May represent the number of souls
Who have walked the earth.
There are thousands, millions, within my view.
I turn off the music player; stop the car.
I look out over time itself.
I listen to the spirits of all before us.
I spy a small, younger, newer tree out there,
There it is… The Tree of Deborah.

3-27-2015

Saturday, March 28, 2015
Topic(s) of this poem: love and loss
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