Comments on: Iron Rails and Water Dreams

By: Vin Terrill

Vin Terrill — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 02:16:22 +0000

Larsen, beautiful. I was brought up in that time period and worked on farms not my own or my father’s. He bot and sold cattle taken from those pastures, too old to give milk. Some of the parts that you did not mention that took me quickly out of the “innocence’ that you so excitingly potray you stop short of “going there” to the bloody, dirty slaughter houses that I was introduced to at age 10. I never eat pig of any nature because I seen how the die and they know that it is happening. You inspired me to put some of these thoughts to print and write as how the world turned me away from innocence in that slaughter house and out into the slaughtering that took place in my life in the South Pacific at age 18, Keep writing please only piople like you are going to save me from the PTSD that I’m told that I have since age 18 or was it really age 10 in that stinking slaughter house. My father told me that I would have to grow up to the realities of life but he put his hand on my shoulder to stop me from growing too fast. I felt the hand for eight years and then I was there.

By: Jolene

Jolene — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:43:44 +0000

Larsen, Thank you for sharing your gift with words, once again you have taken me back to a place I once knew. I’m going to share this with a railroad man who loves poetry and will appreciate your thoughts.

By: Bea and Ted Ake

Bea and Ted Ake — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 14:45:41 +0000

What a couple! The beautiful scenes that Larsen’s words create are no less vivid than those from Jeanette’s colorful pallet. What a team!

By: george

george — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 13:31:50 +0000

So, once again, you bring to us the images of days gone by and yet still with us; of innocence and promise; of a wink and a smile; and of the rumblings that herald the time yet to come – full of promise and redemption.

By: Thomas Goble

Thomas Goble — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 22:27:40 +0000

Although even readers not raised decades past in the rural America of vast prairies and even vaster skies will relate to the haunting images of innocence enforced by isolation, to those of us who lived that life, Larsen’s poem percolates memories from the bedrock of our beings with the same “purity of artesian water pouring into the Big Sandy River.” Those of us driven to “walk the rail” had little choice in the leaving, but that pasture of protection left behind in our distant pasts remains with us nestled undisturbed between the river and the haystacks shimmering in the sunshine of afternoon innocence and wistfulness.

Thank you Larsen.

By: Diane

Diane — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 21:38:18 +0000

This poem is a lovely oasis in the midst of today’s world.

By: Patty

Patty — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 19:47:16 +0000

Lovely. And although the images may be from some past remembered . . . they are beautifully present — as there is no distance or time in Spirit. Between the river and the hay fields is where we listen for the signs of the other world.

By: Dave Britt

Dave Britt — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 15:07:53 +0000

Larsen,

You write of a time and place that’s long ago and far from here. But you coax memory into remembering and nudge expectations toward reality.

Dave

By: Joan Bellis

Joan Bellis — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 13:33:22 +0000

Another poem from Larson that fills the mind with grand images.