Hometowns
Milton Jordan
June 30, 2024
The windmill and the water-tank
Still stand on solid ground.
Jimmie Dale Gilmore
Usually in autumn we head back to town,
still well beyond Houston’s sprawling reach,
and stay, as always, in unit eighteen
at the east end of Blanchard’s Travelers Rest,
though few travelers still use this route.
Our first view cresting the rise from the southeast
slowly turning blades on the town windmill,
once, with its matching sister on the west end,
the primary water source for our hometown
now long served by the LCRA.
Blanchard’s oldest nephew, Scott, who’s run
the Travelers Rest for a dozen years,
says he had thought he’d outlast those rusting blades
but warned us this year we’d best consider
a freeway motel next October.
Milton Jordan lives with Anne in Georgetown, Texas. He co-edited the first Texas Poetry Assignment anthology, Lone Star Poetry, Kallisto Gaia Press, 2022.