Calloway Brown

Calloway Brown is an old salt with a new flavor,

  he sits alone on a summer bluff of the Arkansas River

    watching rafters drop and weave beyond his rock.

A Bronco’s cap crowns his receding gray haired head,

  a burnished brass cross dangles ‘round a reddish weather-beaten neck,

    Calloway Brown is an old salt with a new flavor.

Prayers always leak from his lips between smiles,

  he loves squeals of joy, but squints from screams of fear,

    watching rafters drop and weave beyond his rock.

A Ranger tattoo in bluish ink decorates his right scarred shoulder,

  bitten by a broken beer bottle on the bottom of the brownish bubbling river,

    Calloway Brown is an old salt with a new flavor.

He thought he tasted hell saving that girl with the whitish swim shoes;

  he surely would not have spotted her in the brown swirling depths of the           

    Arkansas River if not for their contrasting brighteness.

He remembers and mumbles, “Amen,”

  flashes of summer when he was lost

    watching rafters drop and weave beyond his rock.

 

As a younger man in creased khaki service pants and brown boots,

  curses hurled at the irritating rafters,

    but a Spirit-led visit to the brimstone bottom of the Arkansas River saved 

      his own life too.

Calloway Brown is an old salt with a new flavor,

Watching rafters drop and weave beyond his rock.

Note:  For Poets United Thursday Think Tank #54