On State Highway 79 North
After a visit with my dad’s cousin, Lefty,
Who now lives on the edge of suburban Austin
In a nice cool rock house with his daughter
Wilma and grandkids all around
Lefty Beckner, born on the homestead in New Mexico
Raised on a dryland bean farm like my dad
A farm boy moved to town where he ran
Farmers Feed and Seed Store and then cared for the cemetery
Until his legs “give out.”
On Highway 79 we drive south.
At Thrall, old front porch farm homes
Nestle in live oak groves surrounded by
Light green September fields of coastal Bermuda
Still growing with the rains that temper a burning land,
Dotted with dark cylinder mounds
The last hay unsold in heaps of mildewed waste
Wasted like Rodenbeck Farm and Ranch Supply
In Milano – rust – broken windows and fallen doors
Wasted, like the abandoned milo maize
Grain elevators allowed to crumble at Thorndale
Tall weeds bloom tips yellow, and an
Overgrown sprawl fills the swells
Of lost ground.
A Super Wal-Mart at Rockdale
Nearby little vacant green farmhouses on stolen hills
Wait for demolition and development
“Anger Management” says the sign
On a banner above a vacant downtown store in Hearne
Across the way, on the corner
Where once a busy hotel bustled with cotton buyers and shoe salesmen
A two-story police station now lingers
Gone down this lonesome road
Another town square busted by big box corporations
Gone down this wild oak grapevine tangled wilderness
In every vale along the creeks
Rich black land unplanted, untended
Entering Robertson County along the Brazos where once
White cotton fields rolled in rows
Chemical tanks and towers now line the road.
A stately, paint-faded, white-boarded grey
Plantation home decays on the edge
Of thousands of acres of slave bottom land
And two black jockey statues stand
Out in front holding their reins
Out to the master’s hand
At the Baptist Church near Bryan
A sign in plastic black letters
Reads, “God is coming 4U.”
