THAT department of the Tucson (Ariz.)
Citizen, which is sponsored by the Tucson
Rimers, entitled “With the Verse Makers
of Arizona,” is an interesting expression
of the new regionalism in American poetry.
Here is a compelling genre sketch of a
desert town:
SALOME
BY WILL T. THORNTON
AT NOON
A railroad station, with its cattle pens,
Fourteen houses, and some frouzy hens.
Discouraged dogs, in a patch of shade.
Half-starved steers, in the drought burned sage.
Lizards darting in the sand so dry.
Soaring buzzards in a brazen sky.
Purple foothills, with the heat a-quiver.
A long white highway, like a dusty river,
In a-wide hot valley of dust and sand,
A desert village, in a desert land.
AT MIDNIGHT
Dim, distance haunted, etched against the sky.
The jig-saw silhouettes of mountains lie.
Across the desert, clean and cool and sweet,
The night wind drifts above the low mesquite.
Among the stars, that crowd the ether tides.
Masked by a tissue cloud the full moon rides.
Empty of traffic, waiting for its load.
Stretched like a silver ribbon lies the road.
Silence profound. dark houses, not a light,
Only the velvet softness of a desert night.