Cottonwood Falls

November 28, 2006 at 6:02 pm (Blue Kansas)

 

Driving into wind and rain
Shadows of hills blurring
Into a single main street
Lined with quiet stores
At the end of the block
An immense Victorian courthouse
Rises like the Parthenon
Over the town below
The cemetery is full
The streets are empty
In a tiny museum we look at sepia photographs
In a deserted hotel we drink tea
And watch the grass sway in the wind
As the rain falls harder
We walk up a trail toward a one room schoolhouse
Through a creek thick with willows and cottonwood
We climb and climb through the tall grass
But never arrive
The horizon receding
Further and further away
With each step we take