We close our National Poetry Month features with a final poem generously provided exclusively for Lone Star Lit by San Antonio poet Naomi Shihab Nye. Happy Poetry Month, y’all.
Something Forgotten
This morning an Amish farmer awakens with furrowed fields
spread ready before him his wife stirring molasses
two young sons giggling in a bedroom as they tie on their boots
I wonder what the world looks like to them
Do they feel planted at the center of a thought or somewhere out on a rim?
Thinking of the server who said every morning I am not really a waitress
I am a photographer just doing this to help out a friend
Thinking of the 5th grade girl in a tiny town Eastern Shore Maryland
who read a poem so perfectly in Spanish twice to her classmates
each syllable rippled
then saying she plans to be a translator everyone clapped
In another school blue and pink mural in hall WE ARE ALL WONDERS
why such simple words brought tears I could have stood there
kids babbling around me till the whole place emptied
These days there are men and women who seem to have forgotten
anything humble
For us to feel lost is not the worst thing