1 poem
by Rodney Nelson
behind the picture
I want to think of who walked that road in May
as doing it even now in some unnamed
and perfect country
my families’ children
I would have been among had I attended
that one-room school in their time
I want to do
what I did not
to see a ditch of flowers
on their way to it
so cannot remember
though I have tasted
sun and wind on my own
but the dusty children I am thinking of
are in the country of sentiment not on
a prairie that had needed no families
and will abide after me
I want to take
the earth of it in very hand and read what
it has to narrate
wait the May afternoon
at a river of it where beavers cannot
detect me
watching them play
listening in
on the day of the occurrent land itself
Rodney Nelson's
work began appearing in mainstream journals long ago. See his page in the P&W directory:
http://www.pw.org/content/rodney_nelson
He has lived in various parts of the American West, working as a licensed psychiatric technician and copy editor, and now resides in his native North Dakota. Recently published chapbook and book titles are Metacowboy, Mogollon Picnic, Hill of Better Sleep, Felton Prairie, In Wait, Cross Point Road, Late & Later, The Western Wide, Billy Boy, Ahead of Evening, Winter in Fargo, Hjemkomst, and Canyon.