My Valley
Tucked away in the north-central part of the state, about ten miles or so from where the clear and slow-moving water of the Grand River mixes with the quickly rolling mud of the Missouri River. Was my isolated valley. A tiny insignificant place dotted with small farms and rolling pastureland of bluestem, switch, and Indian grass. Somewhere just off the beaten path and a little left of “where the hell am I anyway”. From high up in the hills where the Crabapple and Cottonwood creeks merge just outside Log Cabin Station, there is a small creek that begins to snake its way south for thirty miles or so along the northern boundary of that rich Sugar Maple bottom land. For seventy centuries the Sioux Indians fished, hunted, and thrived there. They were the first to speak its name. The abundance of wildlife in the area led them to believe that that small waterway was the ‘River of the Great Spirit’, and they called it…Wakenda.
Life moves in circles,
Like the oceans ebb and flow,
There are no shortcuts.
Categories:
bluestem, poetry,
Form: Haibun
A Prairie In The Wind
Here in April,
the prairie wind at my back
while white clouds mottle scarce
new grass, I hold in my hand
what has stayed in the jacket for all
the long months since November
Seeds carried through cold times
since that dark day I stripped them, waiting,
from rusty plumes in my fence line;
Turkey Foot, Big Red, Blue Bluestem-
names for an old and simple grass saved
from the plow. Most I scattered on earth far
removed, scratched a shallow bed before the frost
These few are left, a pocket legacy, warning me,
a bit of prairie to seed that other earth
I hold inside my mind
Categories:
bluestem, anxiety, art, autumn,
Form: Free verse
What else do we have
but what we can hold
in our own two hands?
Reticent whispers of honey
sprinkle on my chest
and I find that soughs
deplete the sweetness
burned into me.
In the palm, I hold
a blade of bluestem-
dancing, swirling,
wanting me to taste,
what she tastes,
when it rains.
I want some of that redolence.
I desire the sigh and suck
of a splitting cantaloupe
to wake me,
the seeds to carry
these lips to sing,
the juice to nurture,
and my words
penetrate the wind-
carrying love to every ocean.
If the honey reaches my tongue,
I will remember that
too much sweetness will keep you forever.
Categories:
bluestem, life, nature, peace
Form: I do not know?