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John Herndon, was born in Baytown, Texas, and studied modern languages and literature, the classics and philosophy at the University of Texas (BA 1976, MA 1980). From 1984 to 1997, he was a reporter, columnist and critic for the Austin American-Stateman. He was host of Conversations with John Herndon on KJFK-FM and of the Poetry Journal television series produced by Texas Nafas. Since 1982, he has taught at Austin Community College, where he now serves as Associate Director of the Balcones Center for Creative Writing. His books include SURVIVAL NOTES (Latitudes Press, 1987), POEMS FROM UNDERTOWN (Eco-Tropic Books, 1990), WHERE THREE ROADS MEET (Cedarshouse Press, 1995), ROAD TRIP THROUGH THE FOUR SPHERES (Mike and Dale's Press, 1998; 2nd ed. Skanky Possum, 2000), PROOF THAT THE WORLD IS REAL (Tantrum Press Austin, 2000), and MAPPING THE DEBRIS FIELD (Off-the-Books Press, 2003); he has published poems, articles, essays and reviews in Exquisite Corpse, Wormwood Review, New Laurel Review, Sniper Logic, Skanky Possum, Gas, Aileron, Mike and Dale’s Younger Poets, Texas Environment Magazine, and elsewhere.

American Drive-By
for Thomas

Austin skies are dark, diminished
stars obscured by orange vapor lamps,
6 a.m. September 17, 2003,
I’m taking my firstborn to college
in Olympia, Washington
in a rented Caravan.

Hill Country, Cross Timbers, Llano Estacado,
Amarillo is windy as always,
skies are clear, but the feedlots reek
upwind a half a mile or more.
Pueblo is obscured by dust
in a sixty-mile-an-hour breeze.
We take refuge in an automobile hotel.

Up the Arkansas, over the Sawatch, down the Gunnison,
two hundred miles of desert, Abbey’s country,
Roan Cliffs and Book Cliffs, Tavaputs Plateau,
a hundred miles of sprawl and spoil
and these Utahns drive faster’n anyone I’ve seen,
unflinchingly 80 from Provo to Ogden,
layer of burnt orange against the Wasatch,
disappointing Best Western in the alpenglow.

The Snake River Valley smells
like Amarillo in the wind,
thundering herds of trucks,
golden eagles and rough-legged hawks
on the power poles beside the Interstate.
Boise has a brown baby blanket on the river bluffs.

Portland is grey and rainy as expected,
college kids are partying on Friday night
but the old man has to crash after a couple of pints,
and truckers at breakfast complain
about management ripping them off.

Seattle is sunny with California traffic.
Mount Rainier is out like never before
in all his glory, Tahoma, Great One,
round and reflective as the moon,
dome agleam like Mont Blanc in Shelley’s pome,
afloat on a layer of smog 7,000 feet thick.

A Spell to Forget Scientific Farming

The aim is not high yields.
Cultivate foreknowledge,
turning dark overburden discover
lost and forgotten castings.

Accept no instruction
in the science of agribusiness,
attentive spading will unearth
appropriate ways of knowing.

Build a bonfire on the planting ground
at winter solstice,
gather congenial people
to encourage the health of the soil

thirteen bags of horse manure,
ten big wheelbarrow loads of rich, dark
five-year-old compost

seed lines and mounds by impulse
moisten with menses, honey and urine

cut the first fruit to appear
and bury it in the humus

offer bugs and birds the portion
due a welcome guest

transplant tender sprouts
by the dark of the moon
while family and neighbors lie
dreaming in their beds.

Psychic

boot scuffs on rock

skins a root

a bit of spittle

clings to a flowering weed

deer-print in the game-trail

cloud-forest

wet carpet of moss

pick up a bit of wire and put it in my pocket

writhing silver birches and straight slender firs

shedding their auras

odd mixture

light cough

slight movement

startle a warbler

a breath contributes to the clouds

Chanbai Shan,
July 6, 1983