In hardscrabble, kickass towns,
where dust settles into grain,
hunters and gatherers
inhabit frozen frames.

Women plant azaleas,
men shoot coon in hardwood trees;
all learn by stoic vigil
how the millennia unreel.

They keep the same conventions:
faithful to fate's reward and doom;
true believers fear each moth
that flies into a room.

Tornadoes plow fields unevenly.
Disasters naturally touch
hands that crochet simple crowns--
white stars in thick brush.

During harvest season,
the ornate bibles of the earth
upturn prophecies and gospels
that teach the miracle of rebirth.

In Blue Eye, Missouri
events verge on the borders.
Time and space are small details
that follow a fixed order.

The ancient sweep of the Ozarks
is riddled with deer tracks.
The raw truths of continuity
aren't charted on tourist maps.