How strange it seems,

How lives are made

in different ways

on the same street.

Two men from neighboring towns,

just a few miles apart.

One a man of words,

the other a frontier lawman.

One came from Galesburg,

and rode the rails

following them north

to write of fog like catbird's feet

and cities of big shoulders.

to say that babies were God's way

of letting the world go on

in verse like hyachinths and biscuits.

One came from Monmouth

and traveled west to wear a star,

to make a land and be a

legend known near and far,

a little boy's hero.

One wrote of a great man

who spoke not far from

where the other was born

they live on

for better, for worse,

separated by a highway

and a place in time.