Greedy and Grateful for (my type of) Texas
a poem about the great (parts of the) state of Texas
One Hundred Days of Gratitude. Twenty-Six.
Alright, I’ll give you that — Yes to the occasional cowboy hat.
Yes to the boots especially if they’re dress or world-weary, scuffed up, scratched up, and worn.
Yes to big beautiful skies and big bombastic storms.
No to the “hot as hell out huh” Yes to the “getting pretty warm”
No to how early and easy open-handed hate can be formed.
Yes to the dive bars of Austin refusing to gentrify or quietly die accepting yuppie money like we all do, with their B+ drinks and equally awesome and terrible tattoos (that always make me terribly jealous)
No to the zealots and Pharisee priests on patrol.
Yes to the restaurant scene that settled in the strip malls of Houston, a food dream, dreamt up by all the different emigrants, immigrants, and refugees the city streets were lucky enough to receive.
Yes to the strongest women I’ve ever been protected by and lucky enough to love — almost enough to make you believe in angels up above again.
No to the boxes they are put in, pedestals they are put on, and the good ole boy audacity to think they need to be protected from themselves or sin.
Hell no to the hells high-school hallways were turned in- to for those who aren't perfectly straight and narrow minded.
Yes, Texas god yes, to real Tex-Mex dinner, lunch, and breakfast. And yes to where you can find it.
Yes to the real Dallas that has had to fight against too many tides of money and plastic and hate coming in since day one.
No to the fake accents, ideologies, hats, hair, and love of guns, that people wear when they move there.
Yes to being blessed with a border and border towns where a special kind of kindness and combo culture can be found.
Yes to more Mexicans and the people passing through Mexico.
No to how there are those who try to make us fear and all too often succeed here.
Yes to a thankfully changing face of Texas.
Yes to your reflection in the lake to the silent fishers and their magic bait to how the old folks speak to the twisted trees and the bubbling creek to sounds of summer chirping you to sleep.
Yes to longhorns, armadillos, bluebonnets, and Buc-ee's Yes to too much cheese, and too many chihuahuas.
No to the fight that we shouldn’t have won for the west (and all the rest.)
No to fields of cotton tribal lands turned to graveyards and money exchanged for bodies behind bars.
Yes to “y’all” Yes to the best Yes to my family and friends and every kind of distance that feels less.
Yes to saying yes — to Texas and moving back if you need to there are worse things you could do and way worse places you could go so, you know, yes, I guess, to Texas —
and yeah, alright — a hell yeah, howdy, and a tip of a cowboy hat to my type.
