Home of the Lights on Friday

On a sunny day, you can feel the heat of the oil
Pulsing beneath a worldly, weather beaten desert.

To think they made a movie here.
Crowds of extras cheered in a stadium
Built like a monument to the Friday night lights.
People desperate for a paycheck in a desolate economy.
Lined up at the local thrift shops buying
Costumes of the late eighties.

Not much here, but dust and concrete
Choking the air out of the imagination.
Still,
In the waves of heat floating above the roadway,
There is heart.
Heart for survival of the creative soul.
Heart for the common man or woman wandering the asphalt.

Trees growing only where they are planted
Much like the people.
That pine won't live long without the benefit of a water hose.
Terrain flat as the ocean when viewed by a tourist on a beach.
Occasional tornadoes whisk the outskirts of town
Just to stir us all up and make us feel alive.

There is no autumn here.
Just a drop kick over the cliff from summer to winter.
Spring obscured by red dust rising on the horizon
Blasts the color from your cheeks in
Naturally occurring exfoliation of skin and creativity.
Dreaded winter, mostly sun, wind and occasional ice-storm.
Fourth of July in triple digits
Burning hotter than the
Sparks on the arm of the idiot
With the hand held bottle rocket.

In boom or bust the dust never quite settles between blowings.
Yet it clings to the comfort of our homes and ceiling fans.
The smell of chemicals in the air called money.
Black gold for those who
Move away to more
Humid climates.

Haunted by the ghosts of dinosaurs and prohibition
In the howl of progress.
We live and love to find oasis in the eyes
Of our closest friends
Rejoicing when the gray sky turns to rain
To nourish the seed of dried up tumbleweeds
Hanging on the fences.