Growing up in Lubbock, <br />Child of dust storms, <br />There were years when all of my memories <br />Were shaped by wind: <br />Nightmares were tumble-weeded and dust-deviled; <br />Hounded by prairie dogs <br />Into their safe haven underground <br />Dark and deeply labyrinth-ed. <br /> <br />We had weeks when the sun <br />Was weakened to a pallid moon. <br />Even at midday I could stare into it <br />Without tears, without sneezing, <br />If I could open my eyes. <br />When I had to walk into the wind <br />I invented a way of walking - backwards, <br />Glancing over my shoulders. <br /> <br />For years soon after cotton fields were plowed, <br />Maize and sorghum were seeded, <br />The wind would rise, lifting topsoil <br />And some of the tiny kernels of hope <br />In the dark skirts of sand storms, <br />Destroying farmers' fantasies of tall green stalks. <br />The winds would start in spring, <br />Blow through August, <br />Until finally in October <br />They would die, and rain would wash the air clean. <br /> <br />On quieter days during those dirty months <br />The sky would fade from blue to dun to tan to brown, <br />Smudging with the horizon, inseparable, <br />Woven together, sharing strands of warp and weft. <br />But for all of the ugliness, <br />With so much silt in the atmosphere, <br />I remember even 50 years later <br />The sunsets so brilliant with colors, <br />Hues we have no names for - <br />Mottled grayish purple, coral-pink, <br />Cinnabar-salmon, rose-vermilion - <br />The variegated clouds still ribbon through my dreams.<br /><br />Lillian Susan Thomas<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/memories-shaped-by-wind-i-child-of-duststorms/
