The Truth about Small Towns

(Green Town by Friedensreich Hundertwasser, 1928-
2000, Austrian painter and architect)

“Now each man is imbued by nature with the light of reason,” wrote Thomas Aquinas in On Kingship, “and he is directed toward his end by its action within him. If it were proper for man to live in solitude, as many animals do, he would need no other guide towards his end; for each man would then be a king unto himself, . . . But man is by nature a social and political animal, who lives in a community: more so, indeed, than all other animals.”

~ Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), Italian philosopher, priest, theologian, and author of the most influential commentaries on the philosophy of Aristotle

from THE TRUTH ABOUT SMALL TOWNS

It never stops raining. The water tower’s tarnished
as cutlery left damp in the widower’s hutch.

If you walk slow (but don’t stop), you’re not from nearby.
All you can eat for a buck at the diner is

cream gravy on sourdough, blood sausage, and coffee.
Never lie. The preacher before this one dropped bombs

in the war and walked with a limp at parade time.
Until it burned, the old depot was a disco.

A café. A card shoppe. A parts place for combines.
Randy + Rhonda shows up each spring on the bridge.

If you walk fast you did it. Nothing’s more lonesome
than money. (Who says shoppe?) It never rains.

~ David Baker, born in 1954, American poet