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