FOLK COLLECTION 11: The Skaggs Foundation Cowboy Poetry Collection
29769 results found for "No Search Criteria Set"Book Title
Composer
Call #
Pages
Author
Poem Title
First Lines
Keywords
May Darkness Restore
Sean Sexton
FOLK COLL 11 S-74
52
Sean Sexton
Not
Not the listless woods these days, their ongoing summer song same as the year-round sound in my head.
forest, calf, seasons
May Darkness Restore
Sean Sexton
FOLK COLL 11 S-74
53
Sean Sexton
A Judgement
The gate slides open, and a heifer steps on the scales.
scales, auction, gates
May Darkness Restore
Sean Sexton
FOLK COLL 11 S-74
54
Sean Sexton
Old Fence Posts
Cut before days were kept, this remainder - glittering, lichened, stacked between two trees, bellies, arms, legs, of a long ago gather, hewn to lengths, shorn of ankles, feet, and knees. Now missing where they soughed and stood, from rooted arisings of what was good.
fence, pioneer, church
May Darkness Restore
Sean Sexton
FOLK COLL 11 S-74
56
Sean Sexton
The Beekeeper
He came on Summer afternoons, Tuesdays at two, punctual as the morning star, to sit for a portrait, six months after Minnie died. I suggested this thinking of the good it would do us both.
bees, dance, honey
May Darkness Restore
Sean Sexton
FOLK COLL 11 S-74
59
Sean Sexton
You Got Your Pocketkife on You?
I'm wearing my pants ain't I? my grandfather would say.
preparedness, knife, cutting
May Darkness Restore
Sean Sexton
FOLK COLL 11 S-74
60
Sean Sexton
Flint of Being
The cow's tooth fragment I found, glittering in the grass, on a walk in the field - is keen to the touch as a risen sun in the eyes.
teeth, cow, mouth
May Darkness Restore
Sean Sexton
FOLK COLL 11 S-74
61
Sean Sexton
Last of the Calves
At the gate, the last of the calves balk, turn back as toward some great wisdom, fleeing to the fond allure of the past, their last suckle, perhaps - anywhere, save through that loathsome door just opened in the world.
herd, calves, butcher
May Darkness Restore
Sean Sexton
FOLK COLL 11 S-74
62
Sean Sexton
Transformation
We hauled six loads of dirt into the front pen, raised and leveled the grade - spoiled all its poetry, made a dry lot - good for work, nothing else.
pen, dirt, construction
May Darkness Restore
Sean Sexton
FOLK COLL 11 S-74
63
Sean Sexton
The Leftover Cow
we discovered moving the herd to the next pasture couldn't rise as we drew near. We dismounted, got behind to pull her tail and help her up. She nearly stood - failing at last, rolling, dropping like an airplane without wings.
herd, mother, pregnant
May Darkness Restore
Sean Sexton
FOLK COLL 11 S-74
64
Sean Sexton
Cow Landays
Old cows stand in the quiet and wait, as young cows linger and cry at the empty pen gate.
cows, slaughter, death
May Darkness Restore
Sean Sexton
FOLK COLL 11 S-74
69
Sean Sexton
On the Path
The eye is a foot on the path that scales the tangle of smilax, grapevine, and wild honeysuckle, does so unscathed by shards of the shattered mirror flung to the foilage from the bright morning.
pathway, wildflowers, sight
May Darkness Restore
Sean Sexton
FOLK COLL 11 S-74
70
Sean Sexton
For Tommy and Sally Jan
Your love has come like a summer storm. Before I saw you, I felt you, looming in the distances of my heart. When I beheld you, the air turned cool and full of sound, electricity laced the sky.
love, weather, devastation
May Darkness Restore
Sean Sexton
FOLK COLL 11 S-74
71
Sean Sexton
Stepping between the Strands
The fence catches and rips my shirt. My pants are tattered and worn, seams unraveling, mud oozing into my boots.
fence, clothing, nature
May Darkness Restore
Sean Sexton
FOLK COLL 11 S-74
72
Sean Sexton
Descent
She has her father's hands, small and delicate on him, and ears of the old man made in pearly skin.
hands, family, body
May Darkness Restore
Sean Sexton
FOLK COLL 11 S-74
73
Sean Sexton
Dealing with a Fire-Breathing Dragon
She understands space and gives you none, arriving at the gate in brindled fury, calf at her feet, caught and pulled up to tag.
bull, anger, cow
May Darkness Restore
Sean Sexton
FOLK COLL 11 S-74
74
Sean Sexton
Fence
The strand we take down in old, barely lithe enough for coiling into crumbled hoops for gather.
fence, wire, coil
May Darkness Restore
Sean Sexton
FOLK COLL 11 S-74
75
Sean Sexton
Scraping an Old Palette
I take down from the wall and scrape an ancient palette; twenty-five years of paintings launched from this encrusted, mildewed slab. A hillside of white lead, cadmium and titanium heaped like the banks of a river bed, molder along its outer edge.
paint, art, aging
May Darkness Restore
Sean Sexton
FOLK COLL 11 S-74
77
Sean Sexton
Elsewhere
Suddenly, you turn a corner and shining off a green lawn, beneath vivid sky - an elsewhere
lawn, location, dreams
May Darkness Restore
Sean Sexton
FOLK COLL 11 S-74
78
Sean Sexton
Vision
Suddenly you arrive at an intersection, lights red, traffic frozen and in an instant recognize disaster, remember its bland face, as that sick feeling climbs inside and you watch again how the world works.
duck, hatchlings, standing
May Darkness Restore
Sean Sexton
FOLK COLL 11 S-74
79
Sean Sexton
Early Morning Sunrise
That awkward hour, the beautiful was loose, and night's elegy given by morning with garlands of clouds gilt in the distance and he - present, coffee-eyed, watching.
sunrise, sky, color
May Darkness Restore
Sean Sexton
FOLK COLL 11 S-74
80
Sean Sexton
Mother Lode
His words to her were lovely enough to steal, and thus he was taken before their love had fledged. She came to Florida, met our father, began our family. She kept his letters in two binders we found the summer after she passed. Now everything revealed on her ninetieth birthday, missed.
pilot, navy, marriage
May Darkness Restore
Sean Sexton
FOLK COLL 11 S-74
82
Sean Sexton
After Wang Wei
No old friends in these mountains where emptiness begets silence. What brightens mosses in the deeps lays eternal blue shadows on the peaks.
mountains, peaks, shadows
May Darkness Restore
Sean Sexton
FOLK COLL 11 S-74
87
Sean Sexton
Stay
Stay, bright sky, blue as the spiderwort's lease in excess light among the cousined weeds, the wheedled growth of well-drained lands by lanes to the bluff overlooking cerulean -
sky, poet, nature
May Darkness Restore
Sean Sexton
FOLK COLL 11 S-74
88
Sean Sexton
Day's Work
After he was brought into his room, we split a cowboy shirt down the back, eased his bruised arms through the sleeves, and he assumed the appearance of a sleepy rancher, taking his noon nap.
work, nap, death
May Darkness Restore
Sean Sexton
FOLK COLL 11 S-74
89
Sean Sexton
Legions
You were hidden from me before this day and now a decree: I have lost my father- comes to my lips and legions become visible.
sorrow, death, hidden