I'm so charmed by everyone else's poems these days! I have several favorites that I'd like to hunt down, but this has been a week of craziness (and yesterday turned out to be a Very Big Day!... more on that later when the craziness subsides). So in the meantime I'll fill in with some Bill Kloefkorn, in honor of the broad horizons of my home state.

Some Directions for the December Touring of Westcentral Nebraska

Turn right at the Standard Station
And head due west. Do not
Eat at the Hungry Indian
In Ogallala or stop for

Free tea at the Big Farmer
In Oshkosh--By Gosh. My
Advice, Sir: go cold and
Hungry over these wintered ranges

Where only on a cloudless night
Can the sky outstrip the land.
Join the tumbleweed. Huddle
With herefords against leeward

Walls. Walk barefoot over
Steaming dung along the
Dormant seeded rows of
Next year's yield. Forget

The motels at North Platte,
Tune out all noisy Teepees:
KODY, KOLT, KCOW. Hum
The notes of rusting cultivators

And watch with the hawk
for mice and rabbits and
Scott's once-in-a-lifetime bluff.
Inhale. Go dizzy with the

Windmill. Stretch even the
Fingertips against sand-coated hills.
You can get there from here,
Sir. But you must go

Cold and hungry. That route is best.
Just forget your Pontiac, then
Turn right at the Standard Station
and drive due west.

William Kloefkorn, from Uncertain the Final Run to Winter

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