Ron Wallace

Indian Paintbrushes

Flowers grow
                      flickers of orange fire
dancing on green fields under Oklahoma skies.
Like weeds they hold to the worst terrain
and spread everywhere.

They beautify discarded Coors cans
and swarm beneath barbed wire
                                filling empty pastures
where Choctaw and Chickasaw long ago hunted.

Once as a boy, I worked the roots of a handful
loose from rocky soil across the gravel road
                               running in front of my house
and brought them to my mother’s flower garden.

With all the care a ten year old could muster,
I replanted the fire
between petunias and four o’clocks.
But there, among the tame flowers       soon they perished.

“They grow wild; that’s just how some things
are meant to be,” Momma said
as she watered her carefully tended beds
in the summer heat.

But always
                  before she’d go back inside,
she’d walk to the edge of our yard
and look
         across the dusty road
at that fiery red-orange blanket
                 braving the rough-hewn ground
burning in the last light of day.

Hank

Deep, grey smoke floating down
the wooden rail through tangled roses.
Heaven help the neighborhood pup
who missed you hidden in green camouflage
until you descended on him, claws flashing
amidst his yelps of pain and terror.

Your constant ally, I emerged in time
to see you swagger back like some old pirate
bounding back up the wooden steps
to greet me, as if to say,
“No problem here, my man; it’s all under control,”
and then the rub against my boots, in and out,
in and out, before I lift you victorious,
and stroke the scarred muscles
beneath gun-metal fur, velvet on iron.

My notched-eared old warrior, ragged,
but unconquered after countless battles,
you are remembered fondly;
if not by the unsuspecting ghosts
of youthful canines, then by me,
standing here among the quiet roses of summer
cooling into darkness on your deck.

Revelation

He is but a boy      small,
peering out from under
his Texas Ranger red cap bill,
                left shoulder loaded back,
hands lifted slightly to the heavens, bat poised,
soon to accelerate toward its target
              with a delicate fury,
striking,
         driving the horsehide above my head,
turning to watch it fade
                     beyond the limits of our yard.

As if in slow motion,
I watch him     watch the ball,
         sacrosanct
                    delivered on lightning,
ascending the world,
             carrying dreams departed long ago;
and at that moment            with my eyes,
I would say to him what he cannot know,

                    everything.

I would have him know my heart,
and would give him time,
time to see a fading fathering in morning light,
time to feel the river current
                                   around his flesh
knowing soon it will surge away
taking its sparkling silver dance
into another light.
Above all else, I would have him aware
of good leather boots broken-in to his own feet,
his grandmothers’ eyes       given        holding his image
framed in light,
the smells of rain
                      and honeysuckle;
and with some regret            I would have him know
all those things that in darkness lie.

He is but a boy        small,
and of course this cannot be,
           so we walk together
                                in search of a holy sphere lost
among last Autumn’s leaves
beneath Spring’s current resurrection;
and I am content to touch his hair
when he steps out in front of me
congruent with time,
                             lifts the leathered ball,
                                                               and shouts,
“I found it, Dad!”

Look into my eyes, son.

“I got it, Dad, play ball!”

Look into my eyes, son;
                                     look into my eyes.