Fortuitous Stop In McCook

featured in the book Good Day with the art of Gale Whitman

We drive east
on western high plain,
through hill-full prairie,
under afternoon sun,
into the Nebraska town of McCook.

Fortuitous Stop In McCook

 Bob Komives

Room secured to pass the night
we drive downtown to look around
and naively notice:
          here too is history.
The station waits
for zephyr-train to stop and pass,
but not as proudly as four decades past
when one of us rolled in at night
on the move to California.
We drive past nurtured relics
of shop and office and banking past.
Up the hill
past elegant homes from oil's boom past
we pass the home of a native son,
famous in high-plains history.
We congratulate ourselves for the fortuitous stop
and condemn ourselves for the snobs we must be
to be surprised
to be pleased
with an hour's exploration of McCook.
Yet, this past good hour
is humble preface to a better moment.

As we start down hill to look for a meal
we glance
from park on our left
to corner on our right
into an instant of recognition.
We slow to pause
for our breath of surprise
and smile of discovery.
On this corner stands a house,
a family's home,
marked by no sign,
but too obvious to mistake.
Conceived before us,
modern beyond us,
it is beautiful witness to genius past.

As a woman exits the front door,
picks up a hose
and waters the lawn,
we agree that we see
behind the spray,
in front of the sunset,
a great architect returning our smile
as if he both acknowledges our appreciation
and makes arrogant claim to life after death.

As we drive on,
we nod our approval.
For, here at somebody's home
on a corner in McCook,
here above the plain in Nebraska
where we happen to pass the night,
here still lives the architect
at the house of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Bob Komives :: Fort Collins © 2002 :: Fortuitous Stop In McCook :: 0202