thinking about Matthew

Another kind of fence

On a sunny California day, October 7^, 1998, I was so stunned by a news report of the savage attack on Matthew Shepard in Wyoming that I had to pull to the side of the freeway and gather my thoughts. I know the plains. I was raised in a ranching family from NE Colorado. I knew the kinds of secrets that could precipitate a hate crime.

The memory of a young boy left hanging on a prairie fence post for eighteen hours still sears my soul. He died on October 12th. What can one do to change such a world? His mother and father have devoted their lives to bringing a message of hope and peace to other outsiders like Matthew. And, being from the plains, I know that his killers were outsiders, too. That is one of the legacies of that part of the West.

My greatest wish is that in someway, somewhere, sometime, I have been able to give witness to nonviolence and perhaps someone has foregone learned hate.

Thoughts of the plains attitudes, the long and terribly lonely roads and the need to escape have been motivators of much of my poetry. My poem about Matthew’s death written from a note taken that day on a freeway remains one of the most potent for me, though so imperfect.

 wind : Matthew Shepard

wind-seared fragment of a boy

if only I were able to hang with you

on the Laramie fence post

a son of the prairie, like you

I longed to escape its desolation

but just moved on

life holds less now

knowing that you were

martyred on that split rail

none, none, no virus, violence

or loss of self

marks my quest

no martyrdom beyond the common:

a wearying howl

of an old-man wind