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  • A, B, C, D   |   E, F, G, H   |   I, J, K, L   |   M, N, O, P, Q  |   R, S, T, U, V   |   W, X, Y, Z​
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R View 
  • ​Rabbit Babies -- Ossiya,  R.
  • Redbuds -- Hack, Greg
  • Remembrance -- Herrmann, Duane L.
  • Remnants -- Johnson,  Rachel
  • Riches --  Isaac, Gretta
  • Ride...Top Down -- Dague,  Wilma Weant
  • Rising Hope -- Detrich, Karl
  • Rocks in the Ground -- Lawrence, Zachary S.
S View  
  • Seasonal Dichromatic -- Drake,  Ellen
  • Semi-Precious -- Robbins, Stella 
  • Sept. 24th, Overland Park, KS -- Pavey, Shawn
  • Sod House Green -- Karnowski, William J.
  • Sons & Daughters... -- MMeek, artha Adams
  • Sounds of Lawrence -- Mach, Tom 
  • Spring Ritual -- McManes, R.D.
  • Summer Night -- Hind,  Steven
T View  
  • Tallgrass Prairie Hospitality -- by Dan Naccarato
  • Today -- Guidry, Chantel C.
  • To The Prairie... -- Gray, Harold L.
U View  
  • Under Kansas -- Sheldon, William
V View
  • Vacant Lot, Colony, KS -- Yoho,Max 

R

Remembrance
by Duane L. Herrmann
 
It's just a label: "Farm Fresh Cider" 
        a simple common title, 
The local near, just down the road: 
        "Douglas, Co." (Kansas). 
Now soiled and aged and torn, 
        just a bit of paper, 
But for the name, the family name: 
        "M. (Mathias) Gantz."
My grandmother's grandfather 
        and his apple orchard, 
My family, one hundred years ago, 
        was here as I am now.
 
Whispers Shouting Glory, c 1989,
Duane L. Herrmann -- Buffalo Press, Topeka 

Read More Poems by ► Duane Herrmann (PDF)
​

Rabbit Babies
By R. Ossiya

Look, how flagrant--how unrestrained
the weeds and other wild things
that grow in my front yard!
From all around, my land draws rabbit babies--
its clover, buffalo grass, bindweeds,
wild onions, and dandelion greens
all tossed together in one big salad surprise.
There is something vaguely unfriendly--
faintly dangerous, even--
lurking in alien lawns of fescue and Bermuda grass,
and all the rabbit babies know it.
That is why they hop on past my neighbors' yards
on their merry way to mine.
Remnants
by Rachel Johnson
 
An arrowhead, a grinding stone, a
Chip from a discarded jar, leather
Strips of a papoose lay strewn about the
Back pasture behind the farmhouse not far,
Leaves the curious without doubt of
Who traveled and survived
Before.
 
Grasses blanket the trail once worn
Ragged where dogs yet eaten then
Horses pulled poles laden with household
Wares and treasures and bounty to
Summer rendezvous along the river
Cottonwood and elm shaded for trade and
Talk.
 
The Smokey first washed then settled on
Deer and duck and down covered geese
Track scratches, beaver and weisel paw
Prints, and a hundred foot stomps left by
Moccasin from generations of drifters
Seeking camaraderie, company and
Contest.
 
Now hoof paths pounded hard by black
Heifers heavy with unborn calves
Finger their way past the dry creek
Bed to moss covered stock tanks,
Trailed dry cow chips splattered about
Parallel tire lines of an old pickup
Truck.
​Ride with the Top Down
by Wilma Weant Dague
 
Think how impossible it is to love Kansas. No ocean, no mountains. This summer, no significant rain for weeks. We take a ride in your MGB convertible on a blazing day. Here on the right-- stunted corn, brown with tassels sprouting shoulder high. On the left, a crop of soybeans barely measurable in height. Above the blue astounds. Puff ball clouds drift across the sky.
 
Five miles out and five miles back -- after all the kids are home alone--though the neighbors are awake and the kids know 911. Dust flies up in the gravel-topped turnaround, clings to the new wax. We pause for a minute on the concrete bridge to ponder a brown stream that trudges along. So this is Kansas. A few people even call it big sky country.
 
Back at the four-way, three white vehicles approach from each of the other directions. A pick-up and two non-descript sedans. And there we are, a slice of ripe red tomato against the tan and white-grained earth.
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?
​
Redbuds
by Greg Hack


Redbuds in the wild
Grasses copper, straw and green
Spring’s Flint Hills glory 

Riches
by Greta Isaac

 

The wheat field, green and low,
Is tipped with ice. Sunshine
Lights each emerald row.
A pheasant, slow and fine
Meets the silvery green,
A solemn, flashing king.
Behind him, his brown queen
Steps high. The finches sing.
 
Five shining pages trail
This regal pheasant pair.
No plane, no car, no sail,
Can match the beauty there.
The hunters did not find
Each flying radiant thing.
I catch the glory, bind
It tight. The finches sing.

S

Summer Night
    for William Stafford
by Steven Hind
 
On the road tonight with that
shovel of stars overhead, Milky
Blur I christen it, Bill, I
thought of you, traveling
the dark with the trucks and
the skunks.  Near Abilene
a pale stain passed under my
lights, apostrophe from some
deer meeting fate in a confusion
of headlights, and your poem
whispered its steady purr
over another recent killing.
At two,
past all disasters that did
not happen tonight, I squat
in a bath of breezes under
my cottonwood.  This to say:
thousands of leaves believe
in summer tonight, saying,
Be true.  You are.  Adios.  

Read More Poems by ► Steven Hind (PDF)
The Sod House Green
by William J. Karnowski

 
attached to the wind
is the west wing
of the sod house green
while planting in the spring
I used to say
oh look momma
the sun is rising as the moon is going down
then      look poppa
stop behind the plow
that cloud looks like momma
and like the summer rains
she has gone again
just the growing remains
everything I love
smells like Kansas sod
grown up now
still behind the plow
I kiss the earth
as she rolls over
dark damp and steaming
dinner bell ringing
for the water lost seagulls 

Read More Poems by ► Willam Karnowski  (PDF)
Seasonal Dichromatic
by Ellen Drake

   
The winter wind is piercing cold;
The sky, ice blue; the grass is gold,
Brittle, dry and covered with dust.
Tumbleweeds leap with every gust.
 
In turquoise framed, the sun gleams gold;
The harrier circles, swift and bold.
The meadowlarks' clear warbles ring;
The wind sings in the grass in spring.
 
Beneath blue skies the bright gold wheat
Is burnished in the sun's fierce heat,
Fanned by the bellows of the wind
That sears the earth at summer's end.
 
Yellow-gold the trees' leaves turn;
Against the azure sky they burn
Like golden flames until one day
The autumn wind tears them away.
 
The grass, blue-green as mountain spruce,
Is rooted deeply in the loose,
Rich sod. Sunflowers' heads of gold
Nod to tales the wind has told.
 
In eons past, an inland sea
Left golden shells as legacy.
Heaped wind-worn monuments, they stand
Beneath blue skies, o'er level land.
 
Blue and gold, gold and blue -
A level line divides the two.
Horizon-halved, the austere scene
Is vast and stark, severe, serene.
 
And winter, summer, spring and fall
The sweet, wild wind sweeps over all,
Now fierce, now mild; it howls or sings
Or whispers secret prairie things.
 
  ...ooo000ooo...
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.
​
Spring Ritual
by R.D. McManes
 
gazing over the plains,
a sequence of
charred fields
wave after wave,
each appears to pause
before the next
one disappears
gray whiffs
of grass smoke
begin again,
meandering, tendrils
lost between
orange flashes of light
beneath a Kansas sky.

Read More Poems by ► R.D. McManes (PDF)
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
Sons and Daughters of Kansas
by Martha Adams Meek  ©
 
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.
September 24th, Overland Park, KS
by Shawn Pavey

 
Outside my office tower
a couple times a day,
I stand under the sky in the world
and smoke.
 
Today, the air is cool
as leaves on trees adjust
to the newly arrived season.
 
Maples redden,
cottonwoods gild,
dressed splendid
for a short trip on wind
 
and then, to rest
on grass and dirt.
 
Cigarette smoke rises on breeze,
leaves slip to the air and fall
as soft light, autumn stained,
 
warms my shirt before I ascend
to climate control,
a cluttered desk,
computer, cold coffee,
and telephone.

T

To The Prairie and To God
by Harold L. Gray
 

I shall go unto the prairie
I shall go there unto God,
For the mind is want with luxuries
And the prairies sweet with sod.
I’ll not mingle with the fairies,
But turn unto my God.

I’ll go unto the prairie from the moaning sea,
O’er a path so planned with care ---
O’er that path of stone I see
To the road of sunshine fair,
To the prairie yet to be ---
To the prairie and to God.
                         (c. Oct. 18, 1938)

Originally appears in the book , To the Prairie and to God...  poetry written by Harold L. Gray (d. 1997) between 1936 - 1941, a collection discovered and compiled by his son, Kevin Gray, 2007.  
Today
by Chantel C. Guidry
 

Today I adore
the wild Kansas wind--

the same one I complain of all winter--
more fierce than the ice
or the snow
all alone,
it strengthens the cold
and pierces layers of cloth,
to chill my tender frail skin.

But today--
today on the prairie
in the heart of the heat
of the most intense days of summer,
I’m glad for the wind,
the coolness of breeze
that rushes my room
and makes blanket on bed
a light and pink dancing dervish
There’re more rocks in the ground 
by Zachary Scott Lawrence
 

There’re more rocks in the ground
than on the road
here
and that one lone pine
only grew
after all the houses
were gone
nothin’ll grow here
really
anymore
though
I saw a disused garden
tomatoes everywhere
and no-one around to enjoy them
 
Previously Published in the anthology: Keepers of the Pen
 
Tall-grass Prairie Hospitality
by Dan “Coach Nac” Naccarato

 
Daily voyages seldom carry us
            beyond frontiers of our familiar farm
Sometimes we venture curious glimpses
            of beckoning green from perches guarded
            by rails of rhythm and ritual
We spy glorious burgeoning pastures
            behind barbed wire and yonder gravel roads
           perceptible but blurred by dusty gray
            clouds of self-doubt and insecurity
Shall we scale property lines to picnic 
            or heed vigilant voices in our heads -
            spurious rumormongers whispering
            criticisms and concocting scandals  
Arriving at enchanted terraces
            Kansas souls could welcome us and affirm -
            We knew you would come
            Where have you been and
            What took you so long?

U

Under Kansas
by William Sheldon

prairie are roots
that can reach down
twelve feet—our own
Sargasso Sea
holding chipped flint,
pot sherds, sharks’ teeth,
and the one thing
that can save us.
 
Read More Poems by ► William Sheldon (PDF)

V

Vacant Lot - Colony, KS
by Max Yoho
 

Hollyhocks grew here,
fibrous and pungent.
 
Jonquils, pushy as teenagers,
rushed up through the snow.
 
Here! The yellow rosebush.
Grandma called it “Nebuchadnezzar.”
 
Here was the garden, 
where her gold wedding band
slipped from her slender finger
and was planted among peas or radishes.
 
Here, I secretly watched, each spring,
for the first green shoots 
of a Wedding Band Bush.
 
Alone now,
at the yellow rosebush,
I say our magic words:
“Your old slippers, my old shoes,
Nebuchadnezzar, the King of the Jews.”
  
--from Felicia, These Fish Are Delicious, © 2004 Max Yoho
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