died this past December.
Peacefully at his home
outside Woodlake, California
down past the pastures
and walnut orchards
at the end of Avenue 332.
He was a favorite uncle
when I was a kid,
the handsome one with a wolfish grin.
Sometimes years would slip away
between visits.
One of those times, not quite twenty years ago,
I hadn’t seen them since......... I don't know,
he comes in from the rain
hangs his barn coat and big white
cowboy hat outside. Wipes off his boots
but they still smell faintly like cowshit and fur.
We drink black coffee
and talk about picking cotton and grapefruit,
how they tear up your hands,
and white folks don't pick anymore.
He tells about the trip
he took with his Daddy
back in 1944 when he was ten
and they drove to Oklahoma
in dented truck with no driver's side door.
How they slept rolled up in blankets
in the bed of the truck.
While we talk and drink more coffee
a stock car race in Tennessee
is on the television. So we talk
about our favorite teams and drivers.
and my cousin Kurt tells me
about his gentle Brahma cows.
At the burial in Visalia,
day before yesterday,
two soldiers folded the flag
that draped his casket
and a bugler played Taps.
The sun burst through
a gap beneath the blackening
beastly sky. My cousin Kim
had put together an easel
with a favorite portrait,
his hat, his western belt,
his lariat, boots and spurs.
Vaya con Dios, Billy.
BEAUTIFUL!!!
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