THE NIGHT RUNNER

 

Lithe and muscular

he was retired from public education

now played frequent tennis

and tended to the cattle

on his thirty acre farm

 

Prideful of his health and physicality

a temporary infirmity paved a crooked road

to eventual depression,

and soon enough the worry of that

led to sleepless nights

 

Instead of bothering with the time

and expense of doctors and medications

whenever he found he couldn't sleep

he simply rose from bed

and, mindful of a gazelle

ran across his large pasture, then back,

maybe one more round trip for good measure

 

Gradually the insomnia disappeared,

trailed out the door by depression

as if it had all been a non-occurrence,

wisped into the air like so many vapors

 

 

Richard Dixon is a retired high-school Special Education teacher and tennis coach living in Oklahoma City.  He has had poems and essays published in Crosstimbers, Westview, Walt’s Corner of the Long Islander, Texas Poetry Calendar, Cybersoleil, Dragon Poet Review as well as numerous anthologies including the Woody Guthrie compilations in 2011 and 2012 and Clash by Night, an anthology of poems related to the 1979 breakthrough album by the Clash, London Calling.

He has been a featured reader at Full Circle Bookstore in Oklahoma City, Benedict Street Marketplace in Shawnee, Norman Depot as well as the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival in Ada and the Woody Guthrie poetry readings in Okemah.