In Lapland, Kansas

In Lapland, Kansas, in 1919

Gilbert Olson and son

built the general store and

a two-story house

near the gravel road.

You could buy Model-T tires,

overalls, kerosene and calico

alongside peanut butter

scooped from a bulk pail.

Rock candy came in a big box;

you bought it loose

and got it in a paper sack.

They came from miles,

bought staples and wares,

talked corn, alfalfa,

last night's hail storm.

One Friday in 1935,

Gilbert went to the bank.

A notice hung on the doorknob.

Now the bypass insinuates itself

around Lapland, Kansas.

A bull snake

slithers through the store slats.

Originally Published in: The Midwest Quarterly
      Summer 1990

All poetry on this page
Copyright © by Jeanie Wilson, 2007 

The Screen Porch

A wicker chair cradles me, rocks me to rhythms

of cicadas and crickets, bull frogs down at the pond.

Two whippoorwills cry around the house.

Night creeps in like a stain.

My great-great grandmother sat on this porch,

looked out across the fields, rested from the day's heat.

She has passed away along with my grandmother,

grandfather, and my aunt.

I am caught, tangled around by their doings,

their lives--a weaving of threads in the air of this house.

In the darkness, I listen to the sounds of their voices,

watch the parade of faces.

Originally Published in:The Door into the Dream,
co-authored by Jeanie & Thomas Zvi Wilson, 2006

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Cadence

Tonight, not long before

the first hard frost,

we swing to raspy, dog day cicadas

seesawing a slow cadence.

Aunt Roma bequeaths me her secrets,

shows me how to spread

my apron in the light of October moon.

Her porch swing sways

to chooga-chooga-chooga,

the night song of gray squirrels.

She looks at something far away,

beyond the hills.

Originally Published in: Uncurling,
a book of poetry by Jeanie Wilson, 2006