Between
For Breeze
Across the road from my 1930s farmhouse,
my rough-hewn cedar mailbox post rises from a Fire ant mound
in the nearest tiny town in one county,
while the letters in that box are addressed to me
in a town twenty-five miles away
down a road rough as barb-wire.
My farm straddles two counties.
Rural Texas is like that.
The midday sun melts the horizon,
joining earth and sky in a great puddle,
and I feel I am swimming, gulping air with each step I take
along my driveway to get the mail.
The breeze lifts caliche dust from my footsteps,
swirling it in tiny spirals.
Squinting West toward Austin, I can see clouds are gathering,
but like most days, they will probably tease the parched land,
leaving only a peck, like an indifferent kiss.
Unfulfilling and confusing
to this New England transplant accustomed to cool summers
on the stormy Atlantic coast.
My grey mare moves between Mesquite and Persimmon trees
As she plunders the fallen fruit.
Dragonflies rise from the belly-high sunburnt grass.
I whistle to her, and she leaves her banquet,
her lips glistening, and her breath lush
with fragrant fruit and Mesquite beans.
She stops next to me so I can scratch her ears.
I clutch the mail in one hand and her mane in the other,
then swing onto her broad back. She waits while I settle.
I squeeze her gently with my legs and we are off,
galloping back up the drive.
Breeze, Photo by author, C.A. O’Neil
I’m not ready to return to the monotony
of flies tapping the window screens,
so when we blaze past the picket fence
surrounding the weathered house with its peeling paint,
I toss the mail over the gate.
Letters scatter like petals in the garden.
We careen around the pasture, hugging the fence line,
ducking under Century-old oaks with cascades of Spanish moss,
scraping by Cedars, tall grass whisking my ankles,
until finally, she slows and drops her head in search of more Persimmons.
I lay on her back with my head on her rump
and stare at the sky through tree branches.
My eyes become heavy-lidded,
and I imagine I am in a boat drifting on gentle waves.
Beautiful!