Endowed in perpetuity by the Glenna Luschei Fund for Excellence

Error message

  • Deprecated function: Return type of DateObject::__wakeup() should either be compatible with DateTime::__wakeup(): void, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in include_once() (line 143 of /var/www/html/prairieschooner.unl.edu/public/sites/all/modules/date/date_api/date_api.module).
  • Deprecated function: Return type of DateObject::format($format, $force = false) should either be compatible with DateTime::format(string $format): string, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in include_once() (line 143 of /var/www/html/prairieschooner.unl.edu/public/sites/all/modules/date/date_api/date_api.module).
  • Deprecated function: Return type of DateObject::setTimezone($tz, $force = false) should either be compatible with DateTime::setTimezone(DateTimeZone $timezone): DateTime, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in include_once() (line 143 of /var/www/html/prairieschooner.unl.edu/public/sites/all/modules/date/date_api/date_api.module).

Street Scene

Street Scene

By Greg Kuzma

Now an old man comes down the street.
Labor of farms, labor of
whatever it was they did when he was young,
and now that the bones are tired
to work again under the new regime
winter enforces, and the winter of age.
That is a pipe in his mouth.

Now the children are crossing the street.
Dressed up for anything
mittened and blue-eyed.
Hear how they shout to each other, Hi Yo,
Hello, or Billy! Billy!
Cars honk, a window is rolled down,
a woman in a long red coat walks like
a sudden parade rounding a corner
out of the hairdress shop.

Prairie Schooner, Vol. 55, No. 3 (Fall 1981), p. 53

Biography

Greg Kuzma

Greg Kuzma is the author of Song for Someone Going Away (Ithaca House), Good News (Viking), The Obedience School (Three Rivers P), and more than thirty other books. His poetry has been published in hundreds of literary magazines, including The New Yorker, Triquarterly, Harvard Review, Hudson Review, and Poetry East. He was educated at Syracuse University and taught in the English department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for forty years. He is the editor of Best Cellar Press. He and his wife, Barb, live in Crete, Nebraska.

Return To TOC