Barrier Islands
by Larry D. Thomas
(Gulf of Mexico, Southern U.S.)
Thin as sepia veils,
they rise barely above sea level
in places which get their names
from the measure of protection
they provide the mainland
against the force of hurricanes.
Even the least
pious of their citizens,
affirming their faith but a few
Sundays per year in prayer
and hymn beneath the driftwood
ceilings of churches,
not only live their unwitting lives
of dice cast repeatedly
on the odds-on crap table
of wind, barometer and water
but also relish every opportunity
to utter their storied motto:
“Isles Where God Lives.”
Larry D. Thomas, the 2008 Texas Poet Laureate and a member of the Texas Institute of Letters, has published 23 print collections of poems. In late 2024, Buttonhook Press brought out online two new collections of his work: Letting the Light Work: Poems of Mexico in their Chapbook Series and Gems in their Pamphlet Series. Each is available free of charge for reading and/or pdf downloading from Buttonhook Press. Read his previous poems in Deep South here.
