Cortez, S: Vanishing Points

Along Texas roadways rest thousands of contemplative shrines, usually marked by small, white metal crosses. Anchored by the stunning photography of roadside memorials by Dan Streck, this landmark book allows four poets to respond to the visual summons of roadside memorials with lyric intensity and eloquent ekphrasis: Larry D. Thomas, Jack B. Bedell, Sarah Cortez, and Loueva Smith. Graphic designer Nancy J. Parsons brings her award-winning skills to perfectly meld photography with poetry in this gorgeous volume.

A Plain, White Cross

It lists slightly

beside the highway.

Whoever placed it there

drove its upright

deep into the earth,

intimate with the tragedy

of wind and driving rain.

Knowing the certainty

of erasure, they left it

nameless, just a simple

wooden cross harboring,

for a while, the traces

of unbearable loss.

As if lit from within

with white light, it glows

beside the silent highway:

white light stark

as the grief of the bereaved,

white as the clouds above,

streaking, disintegrating.

Larry D. Thomas