Where I grew up . . .
near Shawnee, Oklahoma
© C.C. Brooks

“Oklahoma’s brief, violent history is a microcosm of all that’s taken place on the North American contingent for the past five hundred years – turned inside out, foreshortened, intensified.  From the tragedy of the Trail of Tears to the frenzy of the white land runs, from the hope in the all-black towns that sprang up in Oklahoma when it was still the free “Injun Territory” toward which Huck Finn sets out at the end of his Adventures, to the ultimate devastation of the Tulsa Race Riot in 1921, the drama of the three races has dominated Oklahoma’s story – as it has dominated America’s story.”

-the novelist Rilla Askew, from her website RillaAskew.com

On the notion of time as it should be . . .

“Old man, wise chiefs . . . remembered what happened on [the Lodge Pole River].  In the Cheyenne pattern of time, everything that happens in a place remains in that place as part of today.  Here they heard the ululating of Monahsetah, mourning the massacre on the Lodge Pole where the spirits moan in agony when the yellow haired apparition drifts on the night air.  Heard, too, a low earthquake rumble of uncountable bison trekking down the latitudes in head high grass . . . Their thunder no longer rattles the plains.”

             -from the poem “Fractured Earth: a prophecy” by Dorothy Alexander

 

near Shawnee, Oklahoma
© C.C. Brooks

UP AHEAD

Flashing lights. 

A game warden scales down steep rip-rap
where a deer lies lifeless. 
An evolutionary hick-up
that crows but not deer deciphered
after horses turned to steel
automobiles. 
Imagine the roads back then
littered with crows. 
But now
one could spend a lifetime and never spot a dead crow
on the highway. 
I wonder where they go to die?

 

near Shawnee, Oklahoma
© C.C. Brooks

TOP SPEED FUN

          It can wear you out watching people have fun at

          top speed.  Hardly anyone rows a boat anymore.
                        -Jim Harrison

The lake in winter is quiet.  On long walks with my dog

Georgia the air smells pleasantly of burning leaves.  That’s
what people do in their boredom while daydreaming of a
summer of top speed fun in their ski boats.    

One time Georgia thought she was a bird, flying off a

seven-foot boulder.  As she limped back to the house my
neighbor yelled IS THE DOG OK?  I replied I’m not sure. 
I heard her say to her husband I’ll bet he beat that damn dog,
which made me feel guilty even though I didn’t do anything.             
 





To the East
Lake Eufaula
© C.C. Brooks

“[in southeastern Oklahoma] The harshness of the mountains has shaped the people I come from, given voice and form – a kind of simultaneous ruthlessness and cry for mercy – to my work.  Their language is rich in idiom, steeped in Southern cadence and the King James version of the Bible.  They’re storytellers.”

 

-the novelist Rilla Askew, from her website RillaAskew.com