Fort Stockton

The painter came upon this Texas town
as suddenly as these stormy clouds,
as if, above a few plain box-like houses
and green-tan strips of lawn and empty
streets, the bare blue sky should suddenly
fill up with all the adventure ever
dreamed of in these houses, ever crammed
into their histories and journals,
their slow-talking lives accelerated,
torn from them in a rush
of seething black cloud.

Dean Blehert

Last Updated: October 5, 2002