layered clouds like mountains.
blond and green grass blowing.
single tumbleweed tossing
across highway; Dakota wind
crossing its eyes, slamming
wide open driver's side door.
grinning on prairie grass
at illumination's waving,
and dark ponds’ rippling.
arriving in Sioux Falls safely.
prairie grass
in conversation
with summer rain
Dawn is breaking over the park where my heart is sprinkled amongst the geese, deer which call this park home..
The wind is gently blowing the prairie grass, no sound you hear, as everything is at rest, I lay down in the grass as not to be seen.
The trees so tall with its branches provide a shelter for GODS creatures who are tired from trying to forage for food.
Staring up in the sky as I lay in the grass, I curl my lonely body into a ball, the emotion is too much, only Christ Jesus knows my sorrows, suddenly the deer are coming close suppose they too feel the beauty of this place?
The geese are dancing to the songs of the birds, sad are they too about departing this inclusive, safe, town?
The sun has risen, its warmth is shining on my baren skin, I close my eyes as to soak in this blissful scenery, I know not when I will return, as my home is not this blissful back home..
At Little Big Horn in the prairie grass
Custer was known as Yellow Hair alas.
But it was Custer who fell
and Crazy Horse they tell
was from that day on known as Kickin’ Ass!
The Seventh Cavalry on his command
rode into battle severely outmanned.
Now at West Point in his class
they say he finished dead last
but that’s nothin’ compared to his last stand!
There are clouds on the horizon
Winds are blowing in from the east
The washing's still out on the line
And the Sunday's best is all creased
The cows are waiting on their feed
For the prairie grass in long gone
We can see they're growing restless
And they'll need milking come the dawn
The eldest now talks of college
It's a doctor he wants to be
From the time he was ten years old
He would say "farming's not for me"
Mary passed away last August
The youngster was thrown from her horse
Her memory is precious
Though we live with the remorse
The winter is fast approaching
Now's the time to stockpile supplies
We'll begin gathering those things
On which the whole family relies
Eventually spring will come
As the cycle of life renews
Calves will be at their mother's side
As, too, spring lambs to the ewes
Even though I love this hard land
I know one day I will retire
I hope I get a chance to live
A long time before I expire
I'll open the gates, set herds free
And I'll let the land go its way
Since there's no one to follow on
This farm belongs to yesterday
On a cold December night, a snowstorm
failed to stop a fire in Colorado.
And tinder-dry trees fueled a firestorm
that turned two towns into ash and shadow.
A prairie grass fire in Boulder County,
wiped out Superior and Louisville.
And folks celebrating Christmas bounty,
saw their neighborhoods reduced to landfill.
Well-over, a thousand homes got destroyed,
many others severely scorched and burnt.
And to those left homeless and unemployed,
the Marshall fire is still fresh and current.
Families watched their dreams go up in smoke,
no one smiled, no one joked, and no one spoke.
(Sonnet)
01/09/2022
This or That, Vol 9 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Edward Ibeh
Title Chosen..."UP In Smoke"
Garden of a Meager Harvest
By David J Walker
The rusted remains
of the old farm truck
Remain on the untilled patch
of prairie grass plains
as long as I
can remember
The old Farmall tractor
Planted on the southside of a
Long row to hoe
that I know
All too well
A windmill unused for years
Squeals and creeks in a wind
That still tries in vain to
Turn its blades
For a cool drink of water
Monuments held
captive inside a
barbed wire fence
as if to prevent an escape
The trusted truck stands ready
As if it’s rusted out bed could
Carry to market the fruit of
A summers labor
The remains of the old
Pick-up lost its windows
Long ago
Field mice have nested under
The bench seat and eat
Everything that isn’t rusted metal
How long before its tires
Finally expire
exhaling rust
Giving up the ghost
Of a dusty last breath
Of a garden's meager harvest
Foragers of the Prairie Forest
David J Walker
Faith that the rains will return
Like faith in the next breath breathed in
doth befall without thought of
What it is we are breathing
An atmosphere
Devoid of moisture
A forest of prairie grass
A canopy of the universe in
Hues of day and stars at night
We are living
We are breathing
We are surviving
On a diet of faith that
God hath not forgot the
Foragers of the prairie forest
The sun skips across the Kansas summer sky
as Flint hills run in waves around the horizon.
The Kansas wind scampers around the tall grass
causing leaves, twigs and garbage to roll across the prairie
fusing to timeworn wooden fence posts.
A stretch of murky tape unrolls to just over the next ridge.
Every time the next hill is crested it rolls itself out
just a little bit more.
The gilded prairie grass fox-trots in the wind.
While scattered bleak patches every few miles
signal the season’s burning has begun.
The wearisome on and on of the straight highway
can lead you to a fog through which you miss
all the subtle differences within a Kansas Landscape.
~
Here I stand
in a lonely field
of prairie grass
and dandelion
watching
faint ribbons
of apricot break
across a weary
horizon
And as I see
the enchanting
beauty of the
morning sun
embracing the sky,
my heart wishes
I were that sun
and you were
that sky
The wind, careless in its airy freedom,
Feverishly furrows the prairie grass.
With a cry like a lost spirit, it winds
And wails through leafless trees and toothless fence
To vent its eager force upon the boards
Of a lonely, weather-beaten farmhouse.
Afternoon sun shines ashen and mottled,
In slim slanting shafts, through a smoky pane,
Opaquely painting a penumbral room.
Dust motes dance before an empty stone hearth.
A man, like a silent sentinel, sits
Dreamless, and loveless, between the bare walls.
Wearily wringing his wrinkled thin hands,
He sloughs his solitary years away,
Staring sleeplike out an open screen door
Where stands a windmill, in still-life, framed.
Tumbleweeds pile against the west house wall;
And a plough lies broken in drifted sand.
I went where the wind blows,
Cool sod my last bed
Sweet blowin’ winds then laid down in the prairie-grass and the wide orange sky tucks me in.
Not far away a trains-a-howlin’
Singin’ me a last lullaby
Accompanied by the souls of 1,000 rail-road hobos
Crooning their dusty blues.
High above the prairie grass and buds
I saunter to meet the close of day...
Nightingales echo their welcome song
As brocade of Summer's finery
Bedecks the canyons with moonstone hues.
My gaze is lost in this eve's marquee
Of auroral light that dances bright ;
Where rocky hills and jasmines parade
All aflame, beneath this single flow,
With ever breathless rhythm and glide.
Each creature pauses in tranquil awe—
I am just another soul enthralled
By this portrait designed on canvas,
As her primeval beauty is well drawn
Through splashed colors from night's fragrant heat!
~
For Broken Wing's Form P Contest
Theme: picture 5/29/2017
Surrounded by dry prairie grass
Amidst a sea of broken glass
Like metal soldiers dressed in rust
V-8's wear vests of orange dust
And I, when gazing at them there
Get goose bumps raising every hair
Each time, because I swear I see
Dead headlights staring back at me
RAIN
Five years ago the land was fat
With prairie grass, tall and abundant,
Moving like waves on the sea when the wind touched its bounty.
And then the clouds went barren.
As green turned to brown,
And swaying stems bent and curled and died,
Even the windmill joined the conspiracy
As though to mock the hangers-on,
Refusing to bring hope from diminishing underground stores.
The herd had to go for what the hammer would bring,
And the one who had promised for better or worse
Left to look for greener pastures.
Texas can steal a man’s soul.
But you, Jack Cody, have resisted that devil,
And clover will grace your land again.
You have no need to speak of petrichor,
But you know it well, because
The heavens have opened their storehouse.
The river is rising, the earth has drunk her fill,
And the smell of healing fills the air
As wonderful, beautiful, refreshing, replenishing rain rolls across the plain.
June 6, 2016
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