Thomas Wells Poet Free verse

Notes About The Poem

The Gifts

Detroit gave me birth
like the snapping of 
sheet metal, and her streets
still bleed.

But Missouri taught me
			to see.

The Germans came
Grooming the valleys
	     with white frame houses
gripping the hills 
	     with scoured brick towns,
the cisterns and weathervanes. 

Now is the time of the Maifest, *
	       the hopes for a new plowed soil.

The men become stern strutters
	                                  in overalls.
And the rivers fill the women
                                         with reveries.

Now I know 
                 with my feet,
the waters,
                 the rocks, and the clays.

I am gifted with the brown rings
                                                   of trees.

Published Black Buzzard Press 1982.

*The Maifest (or Mayfest in English) was celebrated by German immigrants in Missouri. Their descendants continue the tradition to the present day. It is the traditional German celebration of the arrival of spring and is now celebrated around the world.

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