Tag Archives: Prairie

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

PRAIRIE EAR

PRAIRIE EAR

Outer ear gathering
sounds of birds and wind
and hooves on spring grasses

Playing them soft on the drum
as hammer and anvil and stirrup
pass on the faint creaking leather
of my old Texas boot in the stirrup

Ripples wave down inner membranes
and tiny thousands of hair cells
move like grass in the valley

From pressure to impulse
and from sound to
symbol of
sound

All floating in the liquid balance of an easy lope

DEER GONE

DEER GONE

A tough shot, 600 yards at least, running left to right
in the open sights of the 303. Aim to the top of the
third jump ahead, move the gun in a smooth arc
and squeeze slow

It was a kill
I saw it as great skill
a source of blood fed pride
and the deer… well it just died

The Indians used to see it as a kind of revolving door
the spirit of the animal would come back soon
enough in another body if you used the one
he had given up to you with gratitude

There are not many deer in these parts anymore

I wonder if they are trapped

waiting for the gratitude

Indians lost in whiskey

and we never knew

HEREFORDS

HEREFORDS

They’re not as storied as the Texas longhorn
nor as hairy as the Highland creed

And they’re not nearly so sophisticated
as the latest European breed

They sure don’t calf out as easy as Angus
but all around, they’re all you need

(AND THEY’RE PRETTY TOO)

I remember
few things as beautiful
as looking back from the point
and seeing a few hundred Herefords
pouring through a cleft in the hills
down to the home corrals
like a spring flood
red as earth and blood
Rolling with white faced foam

THRESHING TIME

THRESHING TIME

I remember at Christmas getting a great threshing machine
a block of wood with wooden spools nailed to the side
but I loved it as I loved the threshing

All through the long summer days I would walk
the fields with my dog
At night my mother rubbed strong liniment on four year old
legs: growing pains she said, although one always hurt
more and didn’t seem to grow any faster

And the grain grew too, and passed me, and was higher
than I was. And then the harvest and the wonder of it falling
to the binder and the magic of the machine as it tied the
sheaves and ke-chunked them into the carrier

Then the stooking – little teepees covering the prairie again
and the golden warmth of everything

And the threshing machine; they wouldn’t let me too close;
it might eat me like it ate those sheaves and like the men
in the crew could eat, and they could eat
even when it rained

While I sat for hours nose to wet window
watching the great gray dinosaur
deep in the timeless mists

And hot clear windless days when everything sang and
the big belt slapped and the machine came to life again
and wagons were on both sides
and the big horses were standing strong and ready
and switching flies with dignity

The sun caught the arch or the long plume of straw and
the chaff lifting and the old hands fed the machine in a
sort of easy sweat-oiled rhyme and the new hands stood
on the sheaves they tried to lift each time

And the old hands laughed, and the new hands laughed
and they were men together