you say burned out and it means loss
unbelonging here or there, certain
withdrawal root by root, shriveled
another fire set to renew
ensure survival, this smoke
sinks low on black field
gutted clean to bare soil—
when comes the flush of green
growth? will it
fall browns down backyard
prairie waves goldenpurple
goodbye, hummingbird
Wide prairie with a single tree
(add in your paint-blue sky
or cloud-dotted
or billowed with stormy gray
to the west
purple slashed from noon to night)
Wide prairie with a single tree
(make it a cottonwood, leaf shimmer
with a lonely farm—how small!
beside the lake
and give the lake a sunset glint
or a midday dazzle
and a few ducks or geese
or raucous scores of them among the reeds
cranes and herons, blackbirds
a finch?)
Wild prairie with a single tree
(strokes of swaying grasses
more than pronghorn-high
or covering the wheels of the covered wagon
the weary horses’ flanks
sweep it with flowers
purple, golden, red
or make it flattened, winter-scoured
with snow or sleet or death in the wind)
Wide prairie with a single tree
(have you found it yet
under the black, star-streamed sky
or why are you still here)
evening purples
coneflowers, prairie clover
stirred by unhushed wings–
evening purples
asters, feathered grasses, pond-
held wary stillness
coneflowers, prairie clover,
rabbits quick-whisper
sun in slow descent
stirred by unhushed wings
sky quickens, blunt-crying geese
fade purple, southward
Written in the form of Troiku, inspired by this post at Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie.
Graceful Press Poetry 