BARN SWALLOWS
They swoop
from beneath the eaves
Carving
an invitation
to the big red ship
Come slip your moorings
and follow us across the sea
Tag Archives: Prairie
PRAIRIE BUMPER STICKER
PRAIRIE BUMPER STICKER
I brake for trains
that don’t run anymore
COURVAL
COURVAL
Small town smaller
reference points gone
inside compass wobbles
ODE TO THE FARMER
ODE TO THE FARMER
No one will be surprised by the report
that farming is a very dangerous sport
What flapping empty fingered gloves
point back to momentary lapses
What limbs with what power
have been taken off by
power take offs
What tendons snapped like glass
and bones cut clean as grass
by unthinking mowers
And what of those neighbours dead and true
who for a minute forgetting what they knew
through red machines combined
with their grain
All these have earned his dusty tear
and many a “who’s next” fear
Year after year, after year, after year
And yet deep in the soils of time
the seeds of his goodness are growing
while the world turns in slow seasons
and he will be ready
when at last they declare
a true war on poverty
and are willing to bomb with wheat
ALBERTA AIR
ALBERTA AIR
(a song still waiting for the music)
Alberta air, Alberta air
You’ve gotta breathe
that good Alberta air
It rolls in over the mountains
it rolls out over the plains
it smells of age old glaciers
and brand new gentle rains
It’ll cleanse your heart of worries
and wash your soul of pains
for there’s a world of love and kindness there
feel it blowing through your hair
Alberta air, Alberta air
WAVES OF MEMORY
WAVES OF MEMORY
I was sailing into waves of memory
as I drove to my boyhood home
To find that some heavy breakers
had turned to light light foam
Here I walked for miles in freedom
and my home was warm and real
And here my good dog saved me
from a coyote’s tender meal
Here all my innocence was known
And most of it shattered too
As I remembered what people said
and then what they might do
I thought that I could face those waves
with the things that I now know
But I was more than a little surprised
by the strength of the undertow
GROWING STONES
GROWING STONES
Each spring on our farm
the old father sun turned up his warmth and
charm
melting the frost deep in the heart of the mother
earth
The
egg babies
thereby created
rose to the surface
to play in the open air
mischievous miscreants all
waiting to jamb diskers and drills
and if they get a little grain to hide in
ambush swathers, combines, and oil pans of
grain trucks
so we had to gather them into
school bus stone boats and wagons and haul
them off to places where they could be with their
older brothers and sisters on the reform school
rock pile
there is still some hope
that someday they can learn to be pillars of the
community
TRAIN DAY
TRAIN DAY
Once a week, once a week
they came from all around, all around
and swelled, and swelled, the size of our young
town
And the chugging grew, and the chugging grew
and the chugging grew, and the whistle blew
and all was new, and the children knew
But now the lines are down, all down
old folks and old dogs in the town
not a child nor a pup, nor a pup
and not one elevator up
BUFFALO CHIPS
BUFFALO CHIPS
Lily pads floating
on the sea of prairie grass
Heat for the tepees
or the homesteaders cabin
Nothing wasted in the West
And every boy knew
that a good sharp stick or a pointy toed shoe
would let you know
if one was just right, or still a little too new
And I’m here to tell you, that compared to a
good dry chip
meeting a West wind’s invitation
A Frisbee is a weak and poor, plastic imitation
ROUNDUP
ROUNDUP
It’s about the hardest dustiest best work a man can get
The pride of the heeling rope, thrown snake quick from a
good horse and the slow steady pull, dragging the white face
out where the boys with the hot irons
can record the feat
Three hundred cows sing of calves lost and found, and above
all through it all the full strong laugh of one of the boys,
where a slip was made or a kick well placed
At the end of the day, you wrap a rope sore hand around a
spring cold beer, and lean back against the old pole fence
deep in the pain, and the sweat, and the moment
Completely released from the wheel of desire
There’s no place you’d rather be
There’s no one you’d rather be with
and you’re too damn tired to move anyway