How It Is,1969, Rains County, Texas Poem by James Lee Jobe

It is an old man, ancient, with stiff, white hair
and yellow fingernails, sitting on a sagging bed
with no sheets, that is itself a half century old.

It is a vast vegetable field with dry, hard soil
and okra, tomatoes, beans and peas, corn,
peppers and squash, and no rain, no rain.

It is a long dirt road with few houses and clouds
of dust kick up from the pickup trucks
and John Deere tractors that sometimes roll by.

I am a gangly boy, all elbows,
bad skin, big feet, soft hands,
and the wrong shoes for working.

I water and hoe, carry food
to the old man, dream
of going off, up the dusty road
to some other life.

It is a warm night breeze dancing up the Sabine River,
blowing dreams to a boy who slips outside under a full moon,
holding his arms up to the sky in brilliant moonlight.

I am a kind of emptiness
that I do not embrace, a boy
of hoe handles, buckets,

not yet a man,
unsure.

It is a lofty night cloud over the Sabine bottomlands.
I am a morning biscuit, dipped into honey.
It is 14,000 yesterdays ago.

I am there just by closing my eyes.