Lone Star PowerPoint

Milton Jordan

November 17, 2024

This backwater slough you see on the screen

fills the old bed of my major Pine Belt

river where she ran before cutting 

a more direct route through these sand hills

too soft to hold her insistent current.

And tracking west across ridges you see 

in these images, we’ve reached this primary 

artery that marks the edge of my piney woods 

where the Dogwood you see here blooms,

before cedar and post oak take over.

The map sketched here shows the expanse

I fill and other rivers on my western flank

which run more swiftly and more shallow

as you see over stone and small boulder

beds we see here and more prominently here.

Not to bore you with excess rumination,

I remember these streams, undammed,

running near flood stage in this older photo

and earlier as here when these folks 

pitched their hide tents along this river’s bend.   

In these closing images, I focus

on the Big River, with residents

crossing from either side to visit

or work together as if this stream

were less a barrier than those sand hills.

Milton Jordan lives with Anne in Georgetown, Texas. He co-edited the first Texas Poetry Assignment anthology, Lone Star Poetry, Kallisto Gaia Press, 2022.