Palo Pinto

I took some time today with Dad
to poke about the wilder places,
places where folks died so hard
and left so little trace of living
within a short ride of his farm.

His mother's dying in a warehouse
I try my best to make her giggle
She's tended better than some others
her son's devotion dividends
paid as she recedes in stages.

To Soda Springs and Palo Pinto
traveling in his old Suburban
riding past some peanut fields
and weathering suspicious glances
of the latest wave of settlers.

We stopped a lot and took some pictures
of nothing, other than each other
standing by some rotting ruins
or a strand of barbed-wire fencing
with commancheros in the distance.

They watched us with amused indifference.