January 2015
I have about 200 poems in public in many different places, both online and in print, in several countries from the US and UK, to the Philippines and Malaysia. I often write on natural themes, but recently have been responding to odd prompts. I'm a semi-retired teacher in California.
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from The Alfalfa Chronicles: in which we take an imaginary drive around the West to visit some small towns and rural areas. This is not San Francisco or Los Angeles, or even Portland or Denver. These are views far from the interstates, off the beaten track. These are the small towns of the West.
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Beef & Broccoli in Dillon MT small Western town with a Ford dealership for trucks and tractors had to get some service had to spend the day: I walked up and down the railroad tracks, small station, downtown found a Chinese joint-- Wing's Chinese & American ordered the usual Beef & Broccoli got beef stew, mushy rice asked for chopsticks the waitress stared 'we don't have those' ate my stew with a fork watched ranchers, mechanics a store clerk eating frozen shrimp fried chicken canned vegetables coca cola paid my bill retrieved my truck late found a nearby campground complete with Plains Indians teepees for rent, like the old days-- I declined, slept by the stream. A Dying Way of Life empty storefronts reveal the loss slowly decaying, people depart babies unborn, old age ranchers sport wide hats, wide suspenders baggy jeans stained with grass their wives in pillbox floral hats at the single market— two onions, ice, chicken feed. One minister, one community church, performs memorials, funerals, few weddings cattle still surround the fields, hay piled high but the children escape young, two cars park on the street diagonal, a metal box for deposits of water bills, outgoing mail, library books, a county health truck visits monthly, tends wounds, dispenses syrups, dogs run free without fences menace the deer, many houses vacant gardens brown, dying dessicated town. 
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©2015 Emily Strauss