Sometimes when I see him
in his black cowboy shirt
shining belt buckle
handsome chiseled jaw
I think I’d give it all up for him
I could live like this
out here
with the prairie dogs
and antelope skulls
the paint mines
the new rodeo and auction
I could live among the closed minded baptists
with their fire and brimstone preachers
with the owls that swoop low
over the fields at night
over the long highway
occasionally dotted with
a tree
a house
a windmill.
So quiet
spacious
majestic
lonely.
I could make my place here
not missing for one minute
all that I’d left behind.
For him
with him
I could do anything.
I’m a physician and a professor of medicine at the University of IL College of Medicine at Peoria. Today we had a speaker in our hospital, Bev Klug, who is the director of Mindfulness at the U. of Iowa hospitals and clinics (she spoke on mindful meditation). She read one of your poems, that began with “The other day I fell in love with morning/with cool dark air turning light,/…I fell in love with oatmeal, brown sugar sweetness,/…” I was so impressed by this poem, I asked her if you published poems in any magazine. She didn’t know. So, I looked you up and that led to this poem ‘the cowboy.’ This is another great poem.
I wonder if you have a published volume of your poems. By this time you probably guessed I like poetry and actually I’ve written a good number of poems. Just recently, I have finally submitted a few to several nationally known magazines, hoping some of them will be published.
One thing I need badly is to share my poems with other poets. I wondered if I can send you a few of my poems for your critical comments. You can write to me directly to my e-mail if you wish. And if you want me to give my opinion (somewhat more elaborately) about some of yours, please send them, and I shall be glad to look them over. I think communications between poets can be mutually inspiring. You can look me up in the Facebook, although I don’t use it too often.
Thank you, Lisette. –MB