"Old Pickup" by Howard Stein

"Pickup" Ink on Paper
By J. Artemus Gordon

Old Pickup   

I saw an old pickup truck today –

in mint condition for all its years.

I couldn’t guess its age.

I only know that I was young

when it was new.

--Howard Stein

Poet's Notes:  I have lived and worked in Oklahoma for forty years. One fixture of the cultural landscape has long been pickup trucks. For many people, especially rural folk, they are largely functional. For many others, they symbolize manhood, independence, mobility, power, and much more. 

Pickups come in all ages from the most up-to-date and shiny to vehicles dating back as far as the 1950's--some rusty, some still spiffy, but all of them kept in working order. My eyes are especially drawn to the old ones with which I identify as much as remember. Sometimes I calibrate my own life by them.