Typewriter Rodeo: When You Are a Texan

Each week, the Standard reaches out to Austin’s Typewriter Rodeo for a custom poem on Texas topics.

By Laura Rice April 8, 2016 9:30 am,

Many people who move to the Lone Star State often ask “When am I a real Texan?” That was the inspiration for Typewriter Rodeo’s Jodi Egerton as she wrote this week’s poem.

When You Are a Texan 

It’s not the day you pul into town

Haulin boxes and slinging allen wrenches

 

It’s not the day your plates arrive

Or your new license, or your insurance card

 

It’s not even the day you register to vote

(Though that’s a good one, to be sure)

 

It’s this: the first mornin you catch

The slowly arcing waves of pink and orange

Tracing swirls across the big blue sky

 

The first dusk you pause to watch as each

Breathes gold

 

The first bluebonnet you spot on the highway

And the first good laugh with new dear friends

 

Where you realize…

I’m home.

 

That’s when it’s real and good and true

And you can call yourself a Texan too.