Oklahoma Clay



Most evenings, right around supper,
when the sky was streaked red
right before dark, the old man
would talk of Oklahoma-

the first time he hunted squirrel,
down by Coal Creek, and how
you could usually sense the rain,
long before it actually started.

How he caught a big crappie
on the Fourth of July, and how
it snowed that same year, first
white Christmas he had ever seen-

he recalled finding an old graveyard,
now at the bottom of Eufaula Lake-
whether the Corps of Engineers
moved it or not, he couldn’t say.

Mostly he remembered;
the damp smell of red clay,
and how on real clear nights,
he always wished on the stars

If the wishes came true
nobody will ever know,
now he’s there forever
beneath the stars
and red clay.
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Submitted on June 19, 2018

Modified on March 14, 2023

40 sec read
52

Quick analysis:

Scheme AXXX XBXX XBXX XXXC XCXD XXADC
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 711
Words 134
Stanzas 6
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5

RD McManes

R.D. McManes is the author of seven books of poetry, “Reflections in a Poets Mirror”, Love from a Poetic Point of View”, “Poetic Sighs”, “Don’t Read Me Like Some Poem”, “We Ain’t in Kansas No More”, “Pour Me Another Poem” and “in one breath, the haiku exhales, a butterfly “. Mr. McManes has had poems published by Saucyvox, Literary Expresso, Prairie Poetry, Write On, Short Stuff, Writer’s Hood, Haiku Sun, Scrivener’s Pen, Mipo Magazine, Swooping Hawk Quarterly, The Heron’s Nest, Poems Niederngasse, Taj Mahal Review, SP Quill Quarterly Magazine, Simply Haiku, and Baroque Review. He has also been a featured poet at Haikuhut.com and Simply Haiku. Mr. McManes has conducted poetry workshops and related writing presentations for the Kansas Author’s Club State Convention and resides in Topeka Kansas. more…

All RD McManes poems | RD McManes Books

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