From Locusts at the Edge of Summer At dusk, by the irrigation ditch
gurgling past backyards near the highway,
locusts raise a maze of calls in cottonwoods. A Spanish girl in a white party dress
strolls the levee by the muddy water
where her small sister plunks in stones. Beyond a low adobe wall and a wrecked car
men are pitching horseshoes in a dusty lot.
Someone shouts as he clangs in a ringer. Big winds buffet in ahead of a storm,
rocking the immense trees and whipping up
clouds of dust, wild leaves, and cottonwool. In the moment when the locusts pause and the girl
presses her up-fluttering dress to her bony knees
you can hear a banjo, guitar, and fiddle playing "The Mississippi Sawyer" inside a shack.
Moments like that, you can love this country.