Prairie Poetry

 

She’s Only a Baby

Crucial construction is done in hard sun.

One limb at a time a private duplicate of you is raised from rags, recast, restored to tissue.

Hard concentrate slapped onto more pavement I can see the sunlight glint off

Metal trucks pouring into the sidewalk, bright fluorescent orange I know not of these birds but

Maybe in the brown crunch of dead plant underneath my sandals I can feel the empty

Amnesiac territory is made transparent the new growth stilling under hula hoops thrown hush

I think my shins are bleeding from hard stalks jutting into dry legs but private,

Smile at names you can’t pronounce very well even at all they make your tongue feel thick

Unimportant syllables bouncing off latin names and words description of shrubbery

turn with the wind watch loose seeds escape

are those weeds maybe this field could feed a herd of buffalo running thundering hoofed feet tearing up dirt re-enetering the ground seep deep deep deeper into a numb earth that we

no longer connect with my skin is separate from her skin

and i can’t understand the way she moves beneath me or how fire just makes her more alive than ever

roots keep energy within them –reminds me of a song will you still love me when I’m no longer young and beautiful

well fuck who cares it’s a prairie its always beautiful in the summertime when crucial construction is done in the hard sun and children count leaves near the sidewalk

by Nanticha Lutt

What Once Was

 

Each step imprints the ground with a rough crunch

The wind whispers of what once was and now is forgotten.

One in which use to cover every square inch of this land

She lowers herself, drenched in her sorrow

Weeping of her destruction

She once had so much life within her

Myriads of insects, gaudy as the flowers

Fluttered over, gently

The birds that had not yet learned the fear of man

Startingly beautiful. The graceful deer

Bound to the grasses which it once called home

Once so whole, now she is familiar

Only to the rough concrete

That lies on top of her, burying

All that once had life and hope in this world

by Caitlin Edwards

The brave bee flies from flower to hive
The buzzing sound brings my surroundings to life
The wind wishes quietly and white dandelions shed
Their thin delicate seeds, now the flower is dead.
The crane behind me roars loudly and leers.
The flowers animals and bees all cower in fear.
My silent, still being seems inviting to creatures.
As the machines shake the ground erecting new features.
I abhor these unstoppable and destroying hunks of steel
With each clash of metal, the inevitable future becomes real.
What can I do to keep my finite nature alive?
I tell the story of the bee flying from flower to hive . 

by Tanvi Yenna