Family Plowing and other Prairie Poems new and used, a collection of ninety-five prairie poems gathered from previous collections, and some new. The collection celebrates the prairie and life on and under it. Many of the poems were written out on the prairie with sky above, wind and grass, some trees and views of miles and miles and miles in all directions. The author’s family has lived and farmed on the Kansas prairie since the 60s - the 1860s. The prairie is his heart and home.

Below is a selection of 9 poems; purchase the entire volume at meadowlark-books.com

Contents:

Family Plowing Grandfather’s Road Spring Lake Chicken Creek Road Spring Towers Night Necklaces Pigs in a Blanket House on the Edge of a Meadow The Wind’s Own The Family House Magic Evening Lost Road Tiny Pond Plowing Lesson Coyote Rules the World Kansas Nachtlied, Goethe Summer Wetting Prairie Hawk Witness Making Hay Grandfather’s Barn For Deer Waiting Song of the Prairie Night Wagon Tale On the Horizon Builders of Barns Unnatural Mark Sleeping to the Sound of Rain Barn Remains Next Five Exits Buffalo Surprise Absence by Inference Garden Effort On the Hillside Road Through the Trees Stone Shell The Fullness of Summer Tree Dance Rolling Seas Dawn Light Traveling Caught in the Air Flint Hills Farm Spirit of the Well Haunting Summons Cottonwood Moving Water Buffalo Spirit Country Buried Night Secrets Rural Conversation Transition Pasture Gate Schoolhouse Picnic Sky Vast Pond Experiment Wind Blown Ancient Water Rain Dance Testing the Tree Fence Building Challenge of the Bridge The Sky Time Has Told Prairie Breath Golden Evening Meditation Silo Sentinel Autumn Messengers Traces that Remain Night Coming Decision to Honor October Forever! No Mountain Lions Autumn Wind Speaks Lonely Land Seeds Autumn Afternoon Remaining Witness Clearing Cedars Winter Wet My Father’s Eyes Bluebird Winter Snow Falling Snow Makes Clear Winter Rodent Dreams Fire in the Snow Snow Reveals In the Snow Fire in Snowlight Warning The Flower Dreams Too Cold Waiting for Spring Haunting Hope of Spring GRANDFATHER'S ROAD

Invisible to the traveler now, two tracks through the grass, but the discerning eye can see two fence rows on each side.

Across the prairie and down the hill it leads over a little cement bridge, with iron rails;

One missing. Also missing is the house and barn and windmill. Not even a line of stones.

His early life, his boyhood home, has returned to the prairie from whence it came.

The earth reclaimed its own.

But the road remains to show the way to the past of my grandfather's life: he walked this way to school. CHICKEN CREEK ROAD

No up-scale suburb, this! “Chicken Creek Road” named because of – what?

Obviously: chickens in the creek. At least at some memorable moment.

The possibilities are wild: chickens everywhere! up and down the creek!

This is: local color, a homespun name, not to be easily forgotten.

Who could ever forget an address on – Chicken Creek Road? NIGHT NECKLACES

Glittering strings strewn across hillsides. Large and small flaming jewels form lines and loops here and there, up, down, around. At night the sight is awesome to behold. Darkness hides grass from ash and contrasts smoke towering high lit by flames illuminating, reflecting, necklaces adorning hillsides in prairie spring. THE WIND’S OWN

Wind: roaring, howling – wild, screaming shrieking into every crack – shrilly, demonically.

Wind: incessantly calling – pleading, pulling, prying; never letting up – continually, mercilessly.

Alone – on the hill, the woman stood; surrounded by the wind crying though the grasses – pushing the clouds along.

She tried to see a house, or person, but no, she was alone, no other human evidence.

Alone – no one for miles – Just grass and hills and wind. her mate away to pay the claim she joined the wind. shrieking, howling, crying… she was sister to the wind. They ran the hills together: companions.

The wind had claimed its own.

Up and down, she ran and rolled, stumbled, unaware – and ran again.

Crying, shrieking… she was found running with the wind. No human here, she fought loving arms around her:

a creature of the wind.

she has her peace now, The wind does not trouble her on the Hill of Silence – caressed by the breeze. PLOWING LESSON

I was fourteen just learning to farm – my first plowing lesson, driving a tractor only the summer before. Father examined my effort: “Plow to the edge of the field then raise the plow to turn.” So I did and swiped the only tree – front axel bent: tires angled to a V. Thoughtful, my father looked and swiped again the tree – re-bending the axel straight! Then he left me to finish plowing the field! WITNESS

The abandon building gray weathered wood and warped still erect, upright and proud here on the side of the ridge, now prairie all around - lonely, once the seat of culture-learning pride to become “Americans” this was their school and center when they knew who they were becoming. MAKING HAY

Mornings when the dew had dried Granpa mowed the field of hay going round and round and round, outside to center. Early after lunch the boy would rake the now dry hay once around for Granpa's twice, outside to center. Fluffed up windrows snaked along from sheets of new cut grass raking opposite the cutting, outside to center. Once done, the hay was raked again merging two windrows to one, drying all sides of the grass, outside to center. Father ran the baler, especially - if the knotter had a temper, following the windrow outside to center SONG OF THE PRAIRIE NIGHT

Howling, calling, yipping joy: coyotes all around in communion. Others too join their songs: owls in speech, sleepy birds, while more rustle grass as they pass. Wind stirs trees – bending branches whispering secrets of the leaves. Insect chorus whirrs and chirps while deer sleep soundly hidden safe in grass and brush. Clouds slip silent in and out while the moon smiles over all and stars move silent by. BUFFALO SURPRISE

On a lonely country road, gravel, winding through hills, along the creeks; two friends, a drive of relaxation:

Where does this road go? What will we see?

Around a curve suddenly in the trees - a herd of buffalo standing but too still to be true: silhouettes with details accurately painted, quickly passed –

wishing they were real.