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   from the issue of March 2, 2006

     
 
American Life in Poetry

 BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Every parent can tell a score of tales about the difficulties of raising children, and then of the difficulties in letting go of them. Here the Texas poet, Walt McDonald, shares just such a story.


Some Boys are Born to Wander

From Michigan our son writes, How many elk?

How many big horn sheep? It's spring,

and soon they'll be gone above timberline,

climbing to tundra by summer. Some boys

are born to wander, my wife says, but rocky slopes

with spruce and Douglas fir are home.

He tried the navy, the marines, but even the army

wouldn't take him, not with a foot like that.

Maybe it's in the genes. I think of wild-eyed years

till I was twenty, and cringe. I loved motorcycles,

too dumb to say no to our son--too many switchbacks

in mountains, too many icy spots in spring.

Doctors stitched back his scalp, hoisted him in traction

like a twisted frame. I sold the motorbike to a junkyard,

but half his foot was gone. Last month, he cashed

his paycheck at the Harley house, roared off

with nothing but a backpack, waving his headband,

leaning into a downhill curve and gone.



First published in "New Letters," Vol. 69, 2002, and reprinted from "A Thousand Miles of Stars," 2004, by permission of the author and Texas Tech University Press. Copyright (c) 2002 by Walt McDonald. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the UNL Department of English. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.


GO TO: ISSUE OF MARCH 2

ARTS HEADLINES FOR MARCH 2

Academy of St. Martin in the Fields returns to Lied
Acoustic rock show is March 2
American Life in Poetry
Family series continues with 'Color Me Dark'
GERMAN STYLE
Griffin offers March 7 lecture on art collecting
Kloefkorn, Schaffert to read from their works March 6
NET Television hosts swing event
Reading and book signing is March 2
Thriller and comedy to open at the Ross
Women's Studies celebrates 'Shakespeare's Sister' March 9

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