Urban Renewal
By Jim Wilson
Art by Roger Camp
Photo by Mark Cunningham
On this Sunday morning’s daybreak,
I sit at a knife-signed,
green wooden picnic table
in a two-cacti landscaped mini-city park
on the south shoulder of U.S. Hwy. 90.
My heart laments a residually regal row
of old, tired, main street buildings,
cornice crown chiseled Adam Sloan 1928
and enthroned on the highway’s north side.
Once essential soul and sinew saving stores—
dry goods for blue jeans, hardware for shovels
and grocery for bread and for beans.
Now modern revivals embarrassingly
hawk imported ceramic cats,
twenty yogurt flavors, gourmet chocolates,
bruised books and tacky silver crosses
pinioned to plastered walls.
All stores fester blisters and bunions
of extreme eclectic art for sale.
Though scarred and scuffed
with modern graffiti logo,
the post office survives
with a valiant vestige of dignity
announcing as did the train depot
of long ago
– Marathon, Texas
Roger Camp is the author of three photography books including the award-winning Butterflies in Flight. His work has appeared in The New England Review, Southwest Review, Chicago Review, and New York Quarterly. His images are represented by the Robin Rice Gallery, NYC. More of his work may be seen at Luminous-Lint.com. His parents loved visiting and camping in Big Bend, so Roger's mother convinced him to visit and photograph in the region.
Jim Wilson is a 72-yr. old, white, male, with no criminal record. He grew up in the Trans Pecos area at Van Horn graduation from VHHS in 1968. He is a retired Texas small animal veterinarian currently specializing in grass growing, gardening, writing, and public elementary school volunteer. He is philosophically conservative republican with closet democratic idealist empathy and therefore has absolutely no credentials to be a poet. However, he has written 600 plus since 2000, and feel compelled to share them with unsuspecting victims. Publishing credits include Concho River Review, Ft. Davis Mountain Dispatch, San Antonio Express-News, The Desert Candle, Cenizo, Border Senses and others.
