Bonham, Texas by Linda Imbler

Linda Imbler Poetry Blog

Bonham, Texas

Springs’s leaves fall limp and wet

and hug the gentle bough

from showers that quench the land.

Flowers of pansy and hyacinth

blossom beside the long porch,

and upon the meadow’s splendor,

we stand awed against waves of bluebonnets.

Within the shimmer of summer,

the farm is an active place.

During a long walk uphill, 

we wend paths active with animal life and birds

and quickly flowing streams,

or stroll across green pastures

in need of mowing

as grasses tickle our ankles.

We avoid ‘The Bottoms,’

where the tusked wild boar live,

because no entreaty will appease them.

If by chance they should pass by,

we wear our armor on our hips.

In the drier days,

while leaves sleep and dream

of their reincarnation as new buds,

Autumn deeply inhales summer’s breath

and exhales that breath as its own. 

In winter, the night is so dark

that even prayers are invisible.

There is no light, except from the fire pits

and a small front porch bulb.

In the dusk of day,

the walks seem twice as long,

for now the streams are thick with ice

and the paths lack tracks.

Everything, but us,

sleeps with the leaves,

And although the way seems lengthened, 

it gives us time to dream our own dreams.