Winter Texans
Jan Seale
July 16, 2023
Snowbirds they have always been called
but lately a new moniker: Q-tips,
that is, snow-white hair on head,
white tennies on feet. Call them either,
face to face, they will laugh agreement.
Nothing bothers these folks in annual migration.
Taking the great southern route each autumn,
like birds migrating to warmer climes,
they command Winnebagos and Airstreams,
or, waiting for them in countless parks,
air out their ‘park model’ homes.
They’re planning reunions, square dancing,
card games, shuffleboard, ping pong.
Calloused hands from fifty years of farming,
making biscuits, feeding chickens, or
curved backs from sitting at a desk all day,
eyes dimmed with necessary reading of
reports and student papers, they’ve come
to escape five months of shoveling snow.
But old habits die hard and they’ll end up
tutoring children in the Valley’s schools,
renovating houses for the poor,
crocheting caps for windy blasts,
sewing quilts for the over-traveled.
Some will ladle out kettles of hot soup
for the hopers and wishers.
They’ve put in storage or given away
their life clutter, are learning Spanish,
picking oranges, holding Saturday sales,
wading in the Gulf surf, driving to Mexico
for medicine, curios, haircuts, cervezas.
They’ll do crosswords, bridge, movies until
Wednesday night, when they’ll gather
in the clubhouse for jams, with guitars, fiddles,
banjos, accordions. But first they’ll eat King Ranch
casserole, Spanish rice, tacos, enchiladas,
top these off with rhubarb pie and pound cake.
In their spare time, they’re writing their life stories,
reading crime novels, Westerns, recipe books,
knitting grandbaby sweaters, woodcarving,
painting scenes of palm trees, resacas.
They’re filling the parks with bike rides,
the flea markets with curiosity and joke-making.
They’re claiming pleasure while they can.
Snowbirds of a feather flock to Texas together,
while Q-tips, their spines toward Texas incline.
Jan Seale, the 2012 Texas Poet Laureate, taught Winter Texans for 22 years at the Museum of South Texas History to write their life stories. They wrote about things like raising eight children, flying for the Luftwaffe, being torpedoed in a submarine, and being attacked by a tiger riding an elephant in India. They also kindly bought her books and came to her poetry readings.
