Last boy born in Bushton

Last boy born in Bushton


Under the rusted water tower,
lay the ruins he played in as a child,
pampered by the grannies,
those few who remained
when the big wind blew through the grain towers
and drought turned wheat to withered stalks,
to dust, to barren land.

He was the last of a line of farmers.
Too proud to leave the soil.
Too destitute, they stayed.
The bank moved first, the gas station next,
at last, the general store.
All barely eked out the daily living of the poor.
But the graveyard they kept cut.

New plastic flowers adorned the plots in spring,
in summer, tiny flags.
Golden leaves from cottonwoods
blanketed all from autumn dust.
A good winter saw sparkling diamonds of snow.
A bad winter, new graves dug.

He would visit his gravestone.
The newest and the last, they said.
The town would die when he would lie,
beneath this epitaph:
"Here played the last boy born in Bushton"

Kåre Enga

22 juni 2004.
Catalogue number: [161.285]

Bushton is a town of 300, in Rice County, Kansas.