In just 10 days I will be boarding a plane to a place I've never been...the closer I get, the more I start to think. I'm not afraid, but you just have to wonder...anyhow, this is 'wheat in Texas.' it appears to have nothing to do with anything, but if you read between the lines, it will.


my father was a gracious man
in summer's endless fields
he ripped down wheat in a place where
"even beyond all the colors," he said
"all Texans will never be the same."

the only freedom he could ever teach me
lay barreled up in the bed of his pickup truck;
trying to keep the sun from my eyes,
I knew those summers held me together
keeping wheat tied down against the busy highway winds,
there was just no room for rebellion
pulling up in Mr. bowmen's driveway,
there was "yes-Sir, thank-you-Sir,"
and then weekly pay.

my father would nod and so graciously smile and
we'd start for home, where he wouldn't look at me the whole way.
but would say to me over and over:
"chevy, there are parts of this Country I've
never been allowed to believe in,
and till you cross border to California or somewhere,
you'll never believe in them either."


-Morgan H