Salado Suite

I have the very special honor of posting this poem at Texas Trifles. You don't have to be a native son or daughter of the Lone Star State to enjoy, but if you can claim Texas as home, the words will have a special meaning.

The author of the poem is a blog friend, Lou Wetherbee. Among her many accomplishments, Lou was Texas Librarian of the Year for 1999.

Thanks, Lou, for letting me share some terrific writing!

Salado Suite

Salado Morning


Before the sun rises above the barn, there is a glint of light

across the room -- I see morning reflected in the mirror and

turning slightly, I can touch your hair.


We eat early, outside, over a dry creek bed,

among the branching twisted oaks.


Black coffee tastes like distant mountains –

I watch your smoke rise slowly

as the leaves curl down on white napkins.


Salado afternoon


Sweaters casually over shoulders, we wander

among the tea rooms, cross the creek in the

rising heat of noon, talking softly about not much.


A pleasant hour passes among the crowded dusty shelves

of a ramshackle store where nothing has moved for years.


We find poetry, old cookbooks, a mystery or two ---

comparing our stacks, pleased with so many words.


A door slams in the back, I hear someone speak out

in a reedy and quavering voice from an earlier time.


Driving back, windows down, among the little rocky hills,

we are surprised by the browsing deer of early evening.

They bunch and gather in the limestone dotted yards and

Weedy back lots of rambling weekend houses.


We slow down to let them see us as they stand vigil at an

early evening chorus of mockingbirds and cicadas

singing hill country vespers.


How is it, then, that our lives are touching here and now?

What turn brought each one to this forgotten place?

How is it that your fortune intertwines with mine,

In random hours of beauty and mystery and languor?


Salado evening


We make no plans at all.

It turns cool quickly.

I find a reggae station on the radio,

We trade paragraphs and verse and stories, trace paths with

our fingers on the tourist maps,

amid new books piled up around the bed.


I make tea, place the last of the lemon cake, carefully, on blue plates, ---

even the crumbs are good… we eat and savor the fading light ---


The day unravels into the haunting, tiny sounds of evening,

full of tomorrow and whispering.