Ogalala Poems

My Last Day in Ogalala

Road work had been finished
for the winter on an asphalt strip
north of town near a nature preserve.
I said good-bye to the hotel owner
and he invited me back
although the town was a lifetime away
from my home. We shook hands.
The town wore its history well
with a façade of an old west town
complete with a jail and post office
on its main street, as if it wanted
to live that life again.
Picture postcards were sold in a drug store
to be packed away and taken home.
Gates of fences aligning themselves
on either side of a highway
spoke of the last cattle drive.
I realized this was the west
where cowboys lived and died.
Reflections stirred of how we gave of our lives
for our dreams and for the ones we loved.
Hasn’t it always been this way?
Sandhills loomed to my side as I drove
on a two-lane east to another town
where I could see another historic site
then get onto the interstate and drive
to the next assignment.
The sky above the open land was an ocean
as I drove east toward the sun.