while
planting in the spring
the sun
is rising as the moon is going down
that
cloud looks like momma
and like
the summer rains
Keep It Safe
by Dan Pohl
All Ad Astra folk should
Share, of course, what they
Know of sleepy small towns
Hidden in state, cut away from the
Arteries of blacktop highways
And tell about red-dirt streets
That spill into Kansas farmlands,
Un-choked prairies, filled with
Wind moved milkweed
Trilling Meadowlarks, and
Lip numbing Snake Root.
From tractors, we see them
Handicapped, out-of-state
Travelers who stop and stand
And stare into the open plains
As into a crystal ball to divine
The mystic secrets of the place
For a moment, they attempt
To look for that which we
Have eaten over years
Absorbed by willing skin
They pressure the moment with little time
To stay, overnight maybe, and they feel they
Must rush to the other side, to what
They think is a better state, the next
Diversion, so they squint hard for the
Answer, hard enough to stamp lines
Onto the outside corners of their eyes
As winter
sneaks over the prairie
by Kathryn Browne
Strings of waterfowl
throw themselves at the sky --
congregations whipped to a frenzied flight.
Borne on a bitter wind
their urgent calls, like prayers in the night
whisper through cracks to pierce the dogs’ dreams.
Off the water a great flurry of wings rises
shots snap through electric air;
flakes of first snow dance with feathers as they fall.
HOUSES PAST
by Paul Goldman
©
At first glance the old farmhouse
appeared like a forgotten lean-to;
left to experience her own slow death—
accelerated now by the spring rite of restrained
burning of the prairie tallgrass.
This was not some sod-house sally,
rather a grand dame used to both
soirees and perils. She was equal
to the task of either one.
Though her Flint Hills bones creaked
in the constant wind, she had survived
these past one-hundred and fifty years
on more than sheer grit.
Spirit rose within the wooden fibers
of her being. Ask any rancher around
these parts about the sound beneath
the crackle of fire and whisper of wind.
He will be happy to share with you more
than you may want to know— of houses
past and Spirit present.
HAPPY THIRTEENTH
BIRTHDAY!
by
Martha Adams Meek
©
You've
jackknives in your pockets
And guns upon
your wall,
You've bows
and arrows on the shelf;
Man!
You're walking TALL.
The Kansas
skies gleam in your eyes,
You rope a
horse right well,
You're
growing up to be a man
And Dad's so
proud to tell...
"Yeah, Sam
shot the deer he saw
As it bolted
from the brush;
And when it
hit the ground, I swear,
My knees were
weak as mush!"
All poetry on this page
Copyright © by their authors - 2009
-------------------------------------
|
I too am Kansas
(Inspired by Langston Hughes’ I Too
Sing America )
by Saundra Harris
I am in the shadows
waiting for her glance.
My eyes bright like
Langston’s
Wondering as I wander whispering for her
I am the voice of many
singing to the stars through difficulties
I am the honey hands of
Gordon’s mother
Returning him home to rest
Mother land of Barack
I stand in defiance to
wrongs.
I am the dark clouds
brewing in the east carrying the tears
I carry her flag –
proud but troubled
I remember the fear the
rejection still
I am the Buffalo
Soldier returning from II
I am the eyes of Linda
Brown tiny in Topeka
Walking to school
I am her native Son
born of her cities
My legs run in her
green grass with Maurice faster
Than any man
I stand in the shadows
waiting for her glance.
I am the endless night
skies of the plains.
One day she will see me
and say how beautiful I am
And be ashamed
I too sing Kansas
SEMI-PRECIOUS
by Stella Robbins
That winter we spent in a cabin
on a lake
in the middle
of the prairie
sits in my soul like an uncut gem,
reflecting but a hint
of all that’s within:
the colors we found in each other,
words pried open and explored,
nights as deep as time;
the sentinel song of geese,
the mantra of coyotes stoned
on stars,
snow falling on snow.
I remember how ice would groan,
winds would roam in herds
and old cottonwoods keel over---
unpolished memories
I haven’t moved in years,
gathering dust and ozone,
and moonlight.
Sounds of Lawrence
by Tom Mach
Voices are ghosts too,
still here to haunt us.
Quantrill’s order to
burn the Eldridge
are embedded in stone
and a boy’s scream
from a flying bullet
may be hidden in a
Watkins Museum rifle.
Frazier Hall holds the words
Of Susan Anthony’s speech
While the applause for
Jane Addams and her talk
at the Bowersock Theater
are now buried somewhere
in the mortar of Liberty Hall.
The Pinckney School playground
holds the frustrated tears of a youngster
named Langston Hughes
and somewhere in the soil
of a Lawrence cemetery
are more voices, past and future…
some who have spoken
and some who have yet to speak.
Originally published in the
Lawrence Journal-World
Rising Hope
by Karl Detrich
Blackbirds have gathered to feast in the fields.
Rising in a wave from the concealing grain
the great flock wheels as if of one mind
before settling to perfectly-spaced perches
on power lines above.
What secret signal, what inner trumpet
calls them from their business to their rest,
calls them to rise
as we will one day rise,
on a thousand little wings?
Sons and Daughters
of Kansas
by Martha Adams Meek (C) Sept. 9, 2000
Kansas skies are smiling,
Fields nod with amber grain;
It's the golden days of harvest,
Now autumn's here again.
The rains of spring have come and gone,
They brought a blessing sweet;
For birds are singing, flowers bloom,
And calves run and leap.
The river rises with the flood
And flows on to the sea;
These all sing a song of love
That fills the heart of me.
The dear flint hills of Kansas
Are home sweet home to me;
There's no other place on God's green earth
That we would rather be.
For we are sons of Kansas,
We love beyond compare;
The streams and hills of Kansas,
And her daughters sweet and fair.
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