Kansas

Born in the mid west, a long time ago in the sunflower state where the prairie grass grows she would spend many days, sharing stories and dreams Tho' my own feet have never been blessed to step near the place I would watch as she told me, with glistening eyes I pictured each message, while I quietly listened.... Some might have seen it, in much different hues but the Kansas I've seen, was from Grandmother's view It awakens in spring with new sprouting grain After brittle white frost, or slush under the rain I have seen just how golden a wheat field might grow I shall know how a wagon, dark-framed, work at rest Waits by a shed, and how two horses will stand Waiting and grazing where the fence-line might bend I can see quivering trees, and stiff shocks of corn The amber of the noon, and the warm sun-cured hay Milking cow barn, and the old chicken shed And a barn filled with pigs wait to be fed A lone, white farm house, with a big front porch And how a bible rests...on the nightstand, next to a bed How harsh the weather, how the Chinook wind shakes the roof And how fast a family gathers, into a cellar when tornados are due And the sound of a meadowlark, and a hot wood stove and coal black soot The kindness of folks, and the loss and heartaches And the smell of roasted chicken, and bread as it bakes In this place of her birth..... is the scent of the earth... I see the brown and green I see what she has seen.......yet only through her eyes As I stand by her side...under a Kansas prairie sky....