Indiana Badlands
by Thomas Alan Orr
He wears a hat made of sky
and walks his cougar through the corn.
A buzzard circles overhead.
Now is not the time to ask his name.
A woman watches from the doorway.
She clutches a tiny cameo
and her Bible hides a derringer.
Love will test her vigilance.
It could be midnight. It might be noon.
Time plays every trick it knows
out here. Light moves, they say,
like a ghost across level ground.
The harrowing is hard,
the furrows slaked with tears.
Beware the walking man.
Give solace to the one who waits.
Bio: Thomas Alan Orr's poems have appeared in Good Poems, edited by Garrison Keillor, and other anthologies and journals. His poetry has also been read into the record of the Maine State Legislature. His first book of poems was Hammers in the Fog. He is finishing a second book under the working title, Tongue to the Anvil.
by Thomas Alan Orr
He wears a hat made of sky
and walks his cougar through the corn.
A buzzard circles overhead.
Now is not the time to ask his name.
A woman watches from the doorway.
She clutches a tiny cameo
and her Bible hides a derringer.
Love will test her vigilance.
It could be midnight. It might be noon.
Time plays every trick it knows
out here. Light moves, they say,
like a ghost across level ground.
The harrowing is hard,
the furrows slaked with tears.
Beware the walking man.
Give solace to the one who waits.
Bio: Thomas Alan Orr's poems have appeared in Good Poems, edited by Garrison Keillor, and other anthologies and journals. His poetry has also been read into the record of the Maine State Legislature. His first book of poems was Hammers in the Fog. He is finishing a second book under the working title, Tongue to the Anvil.