There is a wild wind place near Langtry where the wind blows up a canyon and spirals the loose soft dirt there Dust Devils live in that place almost all year round At night, you can hear them calling to one another, making plans to spin the ground on the morrow. I cant understand what they say, but an old Indian friend of mine does, but he wont tell me. He says I have to find out for myself. He says, Listen real close to the sound those dust devils make. You cant mistake their clear pronunciation of words. He tells me that it is a language found in nature. So, its part of us too. The wild wind place is where the dust devils live wild and free. One of the last things thats that way. I hope nobody tries to tame them.
D.M. Parker was born in Anderson, South Carolina and grew up on military bases throughout the South and Germany. The death of his father in Viet Nam in 1968 hurled Parker into the strange and alien world of “civilian” life. Somehow he survived. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Studio Art and a Master of Arts with a major in Sculpture from the University of Louisville in Kentucky as well as teaching certificates in secondary Art Education and English. Parker is a teacher, storyteller, flute maker and artist. He has worked as a teacher in Texas for the past twenty-four years and served as Language Arts Department Chairperson for twelve of those years. He served as a sabbatical replacement instructor in Sculpture and Three Dimensional Design at the University of Louisville, taught Drawing for the Renaissance Development Corporation in Kentucky and Art and Music in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. He has been writing poetry since Junior High School and pursued this interest through out college and graduate school where he studied creative writing under Dr. Sena Naslund. His poems have appeared in Voice of the Wind, the official publication of The International Native American Flute Association and his photography in Western Horseman magazine; both his writing and photography can be view on www.triond.com.