Prairie Grasses
What if
Pasque flowers dwarfed you as you
Reclined under prairie stars
All heaven-scattered above prairie grasses
Infinite in their reach
Reminding you of your diminished
Insignificant role in a universal scheme of
things where
Even the prairie and the grasses are ever
changing
Where now can you see
Great horizon-sized bison herds, when what
Remains are only clustered preserves of an
Antique land that was carved into plough-
sized plots
Sliced into fading fragments
Shorn of natural wealth
Ebbing from grass stems to corn stalks
growing beneath prairie
Sunshine, starshine, embedded in a prairie
Sky
Have you
Soared where Gulf warmth meets Arctic chill
Known by hawk and hopper
Yielding showers and sun for forbs, sedges
and grasses—home to prairie
Wind
Have you heard it
Whistle through seedheads
Implode among grass stems
Never stay in one place
Dance across distances limited only by the
prairie
Horizon
Have you seen the
Heavenly, hellish receding line
Over prairie grasses
Reaching beyond reach
Infinity experienced
Zestfully
Ontologically
Naturally, sometimes clouded by prairie
Wildfire
Have you been there
When winter’s melted snows
Inflowed prairie soils
Leaving aged grass
Dry as bison wallows and
Fast as pronghorns
Incendiary tongues
Raced across stale sod
Ending grasses fallow plight leaving prairie
Roots
Are you anchored by
Roots reaching deep into darkened soils
beneath the
Odor of hot metal from the drought-dry
dusty top-soil to
Organic layers damp and deliciously fecund
To catch nourishment
Seeping from wild fire ashes next to prairie
Potholes
Would you wade
Ponds and potholes left by
Olden glaciers’ graves midst rolling hills
Trysting places for waterfowl and shorebirds
Hidden in plain sight
Outside
Lying summer-still in the
Endlessly
Susurrating prairie
(For Paul Gruchow)
