My Western City, Dreaming

“How many times I saw my western city/Dream by her river.”
--Sara Teasdale, “Sunset: St. Louis” from Flame and Shadow

"A mourning figure walks, and will not rest..."
--Vachel Lindsay, "Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight"


That’s what old river towns do,
dream by their rivers, dream of the
days of glory and wealth and triumphs,
when the making of things was important
and the shipping of things was vital and the
banking of things was critical and the litigating
of things made and shipped and banked was lifeblood;
and now old river towns doze and occasionally half-wake,
with ears closed and one eye open, dreaming by their rivers,
and with ears open and one eye closed, dreaming of the
mourning figure walking
the prairie streets.


This is a poem for the Random Act of Poetry sponsored by the High Calling Blogs. L.L. Barkat provided the prompt: Begin with a sentence with a picture in it, like from a poem, and then write from a memory or event or simply what comes to mind. I chose the lines above from the Sara Teasdale and Vachel Lindsay poems, both of which are featured today at TweetSpeak Poetry for National Poetry Month.

And Louise Gallagher at Recover Your Joy got inspired by all of this and wrote "River Deep."

Stuff Over on the Right Side

I've added a few badges to the right-side navigation. The High Calling Blogs badge (top right, above my photo and profile) has been there for some time. I've been following the posts there for some time, and then they posted one of my poems, and then their parent organization published one of my articles, and then they picked up a couple of my own posts from this blog, and now I'm an officially designated writer for them, and, well, you get the picture. It's a cool site, and a great group of writers and editors to be connected to (yes, I ended that sentence with a preposition) (except now I didn't).

If you scroll down a ways, down below "Search This Blog," you'll find I've added five badges:

• Seedlings in Stone, the blog site for L.L. Barkat, author of Stone Crossings and the soon-to-be-published collection of poems called InsideOut. I first "met" L.L. when I read Stone Crossings as I lay in a hospital bed with some broken ribs and partially collapsed lung back in July. Four months later, we're partners in crime with Eric Swalberg in publishing TweetSpeak Poetry, an online journal for Twitter poems (and other things).
• Holy Experience, the blog site for Ann Voskamp, a site I visit every day for the thoughts, the words, the photos and the music. Ann's blog is a chronicle of life on a family farm in Canada, and it's one of the most beautiful places I've found on the web/internet/blogosphere/Twitterdom.
• Billy Coffey, the web site (and link to his blog) for the writer of the same name. He writes one of the best blogs out there, because he's one of the best writers out there. And his novel Snow Day is set to be published in the fall of 2010.
• Hey look, a chicken!, the blog site for Kathy Richards, aka @katdish. Kathy's was one of the most original thinkers I've run across, and she'll take you for wild rides and end up in thoughtful, profound places. (She's also famous for her exuberant rants, and they are a marvel to behold.)
• Soccer for St. Louis. This is a group attempting to promote St. Louis for the World Cup games. No, I am not a major soccer fan; my youngest son is the soccer fan. You do strange things for your children sometimes.

I've added these badges (well, except for the soccer one) as a thank you in this season of thanksgiving to five writers and one organization who've brought some joy, and fine writing, to my life. I'll be adding a few more soon. (And if Shrinking The Camel had a badge, I'd add his, too.)

Update: Just added the badge for L.L.Barkat's InsideOut, her collection of poems to be published soon. Click through to the book's home page.