Poem Fits the Picture

 

TOM MCGRATH

A few lines from a Tom McGrath poem fit the picture very well. He is writing about the Maple River, I’ll guess about 1925 to 1930, northwest of Sheldon; the threshing outfit is crossing the Sheyenne River in 1902, not far south of Sheldon. As our proverbial crow flies, there are not many miles or years between.

“Sometimes, at night, after a long move to another farm,

Hours after the bundle teams were gone and sleeping,

After we’d set the rig for the next day,

I rode the off-horse home.

Midnight, maybe, the dogs of the strange farms

Barking behind me, the river short-cut rustling

With its dark and secret life and the deep pools warm.

(I swam there once in the dead of night while the team

Nuzzled the black water.)

Home then. Dead beat."

Eyes Aloft

 Eyes Aloft

By Lynn Bueling

They tested  bombs and filmed the bloom

of mushroom clouds that rose

and rode aloft on overhead winds

and carried dangers of it to us.

They called the 50s the Decade of Fear

and the world prepared for the worst.

Scant radar array in the USA 

might miss Russians sneaking

through to drop a clutch of eggs 

to hatch and bring destruction. 

Mom’s aunt and daughter joined

the Ground Observer Corps 

as Skywatch volunteers,

urged by Truman to recall 

Pearl Harbor could happen again. 

They took their shift in  a little shack 

on the hill west of town 

where with “Eyes Aloft”  they 

scanned the sky for enemy

that might come sneaking through.

The “Decade of Fear” kept us on our toes 

wondering if we’d see the sun again. 

Meanwhile just below the hill

baseballs flew out of the park, 

and Steinbeck passed through Alice.

The End of My Book Reviews

 Here's how I ended my time as a book reviewer.

RANDOM THOUGHTS - Friday, April 17, 2026

Mn Twins off to a good start … A few more days of wintry weather ahead … It’s hard to make a friend if you blow up his house … On this day in 1964 the Ford Mustang appeared … Robert Frost says "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on” … Personally, I would never argue matters of religion with the Pope … Enjoying the streaming of “The West Wing” … The Artemis II crew make great role models for youth … 75 years ago inhabitants of Elbowoods community had to vacate because Lake Sacajawea started trising behind Garrison Dam … Mary busies herself researching and writing another phase of family history … Scenic landscape pictured, Cannonball River flows below …

One of My Favorite Stories

This is one of my favorite stories. Published nine years ago already.

 

The Road Patrol

 Yesterday I saw a picture on facebook that Tom Isern posted here of a road patrol grader displayed near Forman, I think. It brought memories, and one time I wrote a poem with seven syllable lines about my days working with one. It might not be very good, but here it is along with his picture plus one I took at a museum in Georgia.

The Road Patrol

The Greene Township road patrol,

scaled small enough for horses

to pull, sat rusting in trees

until someone searched it out

and hooked a tractor to it.

Here’s where I enter the scene:

driver, pulling straight away

while Dad stood on rear platform

working blade angle and depth

to smooth the washboard bumps

that banged and chattered a car’s

chassis so hard your teeth shook

and made you wish for a rain

to fall and soften the road bed

so that the little grader

blade could grab some bite and cut

the rough grade to a smooth shave.

The times cried, “Do-it-yourself

if you want to change your world,

no one will do it for you!”

The Promise of the Future

 I picked up a book from my shelf and a notice fell from it, one forgotten about. It told me that my poem “The Promise of the Future” received an Editor’s Choice Award. The date isn’t on it, but it must have been forty years ago. The poem’s lines are each seven syllables in length. I used that style in several poems, others use five syllable lines, and still others use eight syllable lines. Syllable-count is just another way of doing it, and it is fun making it work. Here it is.

The Promise of the Future

By Lynn Bueling

Dates carved on his monument

indicate a shorter life

span than my own. Fortunate,

my birthdays accumulate,

but my granite inscription

will be read sometime by one

who has lived longer than I.

He will laugh until the day

his tombstone scribes his demise.

Together, then, we three can

watch deep roots search for water

and think of the prevailing

common denominator.