Home

Table of Contents

Vintage Colorado Poetry Past Poet Laureate Poem of the Week March 8, 2004

Nellie Burget Miller, born in Iowa, came to Colorado Springs the wife of a doctor.  After the death of poet laureate Alice Polk Hill in 1921, Nellie Burget Miller was named Colorado's second laureate and held the life-long office from 1923 to her own death 1952.

Drought The sun drops red through a curtain of dust, White scars seam the alkali plain, No sound or motion---save over there A tumble-weed starts on its endless quest For God knows what---or where. The brown grass clings to the fields like rust, But deep in my heart is the sound of rain--- The stealthy moccasined feet of the rain--- Pat, pat on the sun-baked crust ; Like dear remembered dreams of love In sleepless nights of pain.                The Coming Rain Now with the breath of coming rain The poplars sway, a troubled row, Like old wives rocking to and fro In pain ; They shake their heads in shocked suprise And whisper underneath their breath, Like mourners in a house of death, And lift their aprons to their eyes Again.                     --Nellie Burget Miller            "Drought" and "The Coming Rain," from In Earthen Bowls by Nellie Burget Miller, New York, London, D. Appleton and Company, 1924. Copyright, 1924, by D. Appleton and Company.  Use by Vintage Colorado Poetry, literary archive, permitted under 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act [last 20 year rule] for scholarly purpose.