Land of Lincoln
I’ve been thinking again
about him, his profile
on Heritage Trail signs;
Land of Lincoln on cars and pickups
along all my childhood’s two-lanes.
Trailer behind the farmhouse,
yards of fireflies beneath
crab apples branches;
the lunch crowd at Lucy’s,
motels, garages, parks.
Springfield on old Route 66,
Corn Dogs on the west,
grain elevators
along the Sixth Circuit.
Shall we trim the honeysuckle
from the old picnic area
on 51 and have our KFC
in the remaining neglect?
Railroad lanes lonely and rusted,
Land of Lincoln and drug store postcards
four score and ten. Is it
too much to say that wild flowers
and stones themselves cry out
with malice toward none?
Abe and Jesus vie for which
we Illinois folk heard first,
saving souls or saving the Union,
crossing the Jordan or the Sangamon.
Paul Stroble teaches at Webster University in St. Louis. A former grantee of the NEH and the Louisville Institute, he has I’ve published twenty books on a variety of subjects, including three poetry chapbooks with Finishing Line Press and another forthcoming. One of his chapbooks was nominated for a Society of Midland Authors Award. His poems have appeared in Big Muddy, Tipton Poetry Journal, Pikeville Review, Springhouse, Pegasus, and others.
The Paddock Review 