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E - H ... Kansas Poems
Alphabetically sectioned by poem title Select Below to View Another Group: |
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End of Winter Reflections: McPherson County KS
by Paula Luteran The cool winds of March cover the earth like a soft fleece blanket and beneath a powdery snow, waits the crocus. From the barn a soft padding can be heard as the farmer's son prepares the cows for the morning milking. With a faraway look the young boy reflects on the advent of Easter and the greening of the fields. Spring brings with it a burst of color. The first witness to the season will be the joyous crocus on a slender stem. With its bright ocre stamen it presages the warmth of the sun. Tiny purple blooms will dot the neighboring farms and soon, there will be flowers: tulips in all hues and baskets full of daffodils. |
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Farming, Death & Taxes
by Susan Kinney-Riordan I scan the horizon. The outline of grain elevators against the sky look like gravestones. Horizon and sky touchstones For life lived on the prairie. Traveling the highways I watch and look. Dry fields and soybean harvest. Favorable weather it says on the USDA paperwork. Farming in Kansas a gamble worthy of Las Vegas. My father-in-law said, “The only sure things about farming in Kansas is death and taxes.” |
Flint Hills
by William J. Karnowski outside of me is dawn at first the birds celebrate singing their stanzas blue birds after blue birds rain crows make their predictions the prairie chicken boom from the arena of the lek and the mocking bird lies about his identity then all goes quiet at the intermission the second verse is the muffled roar of the six-legged multitudes honey bees massage the petals satisfying that single sweet tooth the yellow jackets menace an innocent butterfly passerby the grasshoppers chew tobacco helicopter flies proudly hover but the middle of the morning belongs to the meadowlark singing, "who the hell are you?" asking, "who the hell are you?" and I have no Christian answer. Read More Poems by ► William J. Karnowski |
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Flint Hills, Kansas
by Primo Ventello Kansas surrounds you in immense, inescapable horizon. Nowhere is this more striking, more serene, and beautiful than in the Flint Hills. By day, carpets of undulating brome and native prairie grass hiss softly in the breeze, seducing the eye along the curvature of the Earth, broken only by groves of hedge trees and sunlight glinting off flint rock. Ring-neck pheasant spring up awkwardly into flight, showing the oily auburn of their long tails, then quickly set a rhythm as liquescent as a swimmer. By night, cicadas hum, coyotes cry, and the sky is stippled with millions of stars, as if the hand of their creator had shaken them from a great paintbrush. Previously published in National Geographic Traveler |
Flint Hills
by Elisabeth Birky Sun-drenched palette Rolling hills Extend Beyond a cloudless horizon Like a giant quilt. An artist’s motif Colorful wildflowers Nod Waving gently to the baton Of the perpetual breeze. Rich and varied grasses Of every shade and hue Beckon As with open palms To these majestic flint hills. |
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Going Home (Oct. 2005)
by Ronda Miller Grave sites scatter either side of the dusty gravel road like a child's long forgotten marbles. Many years ago bitter, blinding tears watered these sites daily, caregiver to grass, trees, headstones. Present Memorial Days produce less tears, a hasty pulling of weeds. A different life acknowledges time passing much too quickly, not unlike the tumble weed blown across the steady incline of I-70. The foot that pressed lightly, nimbly on the gas pedal all the way west as close to the Colorado and Nebraska borders as you can get, now presses slowly, age and pain taking their toll. Silent tears fall as the car heads in the other direction. Going east now through waving, russet colored wheat fields. Leaving the high plains and heading for Lawrence, remaining burial sites too soon calling my name, filling again with familiar faces of people I love. |
Guy
by Kevin Heaton To Kansas for harvest from up in Moline. Met a young girl, her dad owned the place. Not long thereafter they wound up together. Worked hard all their lives in the hardest of days. Grandpa was wee, but lord, oh so mighty. Profoundly moral but never in church. Faith in the remedies not in the doctors. Rolled all his own from a Prince Albert can. You grab an instrument grandpa could play it. Played the barn dances way back in the day. "Civil War Ditties" on an old barn dance fiddle. Work boots a tappin' a tune on the floor. When I was just four they were still on the farm. We'd go to visit, a big thrill for me. I helped churn the butter and gather the eggs, then up on the mare and away we would go. The thumb he used most was eternally swollen by a Chincapin burr many long years before. Got a bum shoulder at a shelter belt picnic. When he cleared his nose, best not be nearby. That thumb on a horseshoe was Mozart to music. Way up in the air that horseshoe did soar, then down on the peg without ever slidin'. He'd let me win quarters then win them all back. There are those who might say grandpa was calloused, but in the depression you got tough or died. Mom always said they were poor without knowing, always had love, food, and something to wear. On a big-dialed Philco he listened to baseball. When I hid his cap, he called me a scamp. Had a stroke near the end while tuned to a ballgame. Wouldn't go to the doctor, we carried him there. |
Gift
Topeka, Kansas
by Lois Virginia Walker
1948
Flatlands gave me a gift.
I’d like to say what it was
Not to have been born near water
Where salt solution spreads on sand;
Not to have been rocked in a cradle
Of mountains or put on top of a view;
Not to have been lost in the forest
With Hansel and Gretel, holding hands.
I was pushed by the wind,
On my feet pushing back
I was small in the wind
That would keep coming back.
Say the flat horizon of a child’s
Sketch leaves more to wind and sky,
Stretches out for every tree
And tulip added. . .offered up
To unsalted, never cornered air.
Topeka, Kansas
by Lois Virginia Walker
1948
Flatlands gave me a gift.
I’d like to say what it was
Not to have been born near water
Where salt solution spreads on sand;
Not to have been rocked in a cradle
Of mountains or put on top of a view;
Not to have been lost in the forest
With Hansel and Gretel, holding hands.
I was pushed by the wind,
On my feet pushing back
I was small in the wind
That would keep coming back.
Say the flat horizon of a child’s
Sketch leaves more to wind and sky,
Stretches out for every tree
And tulip added. . .offered up
To unsalted, never cornered air.
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Hawk Music
by Maril Crabtree Feathers spread into fingers, hawk falls with the wind, spiraling down as if caught in a place of no hope – a daredevil’s pitch, do-or-die. Now hawk lifts again, drifting where hope and wind take him, whistling, into the strumming air, filled with a cloudless lullaby. Listen as symphony’s sweeping sounds pour unbound from his flapping wings, singing and swinging across an arpeggio sky. |
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. |
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A Heavenly Gift
by Nancy Julien Kopp One calm and peaceful day the hand of God passed over the land we know as Kansas, this place where the hills meet the plains, where sweet prairie grasses bend and sway like ballerinas amidst soft and gentle breezes, then dance wildly when furious winds blow. The Lord God pulled the vast skies close to the ground, like a soft coverlet of blue. He gave us air to breathe so clear the stars can do no less than shine in glorious reply through velvet nights. Over these hills and across these plains, the Creator scattered many-hued wildflowers and treasured trees in all the right places. His mighty hand carved brooks and streams alike. With grateful heart my prayer of thanks soars Heavenward from this very special place that I call home. |
Home
by Karen Cerio Flat lands, oceans of wheat, harvest hands, fields all neat friendly folks, warm smiles, country jokes, at home style, family fun, 4th of July, summer sun, stars in the sky, county fair, carnival lights, first place mare, dances at night, drive-in features, friends for life, old teachers, help in strife, tornado warnings, siren blasts, Sunday morning, faith that lasts, skies of blue, thunder clouds, grass with dew, funeral shrouds, simple food, gathering eggs, city dudes, bowed legs, hand shake deals, respect of man, prayerful kneels, God and land, parents and home, love and laughter, thoughts roam, forever after to Kansas. 1987 kc Originally Published in Life's Dusty Roads, © 2012 by Karen Cerio, all rights reserved Tate Publishing & Enterprises, LLC -- Purchase this book online at Amazon.com or Tate Publishing |
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!"
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!"
