King Bluestem

Technology is moving so fast, it's hard to keep up with it all. The computers get viruses when I don't buy the latest security software, I receive notices that I've been infiltrated by pirates and spyware, malicious viruses - it's all meant to alarm and scare me. There's no going back to simpler times, when the landscape was dominated by the beautiful tall grasses.

The largest grass of all is Big Bluestem - the alpha of the prairie grasses. The roots dive down as far as the grass is tall. Buffalo roamed through it, as it worked the earth and made the rich topsoil on which our farm country depends. We have planted Big Bluestem, and it has thrived in the reclaimed farm ground. It loves a cycle of fire. We burn it off every few years - it keeps volunteer trees from popping up through it and compromising it. This poem, which I wrote over the weekend, is a salute to the prairie grass. This poem didn't channel itself easily - I had to struggle with it and rewrite to get it out. Here it is.

King Bluestem

Out of the framed picture I walk, into my yard.

What is the color of this blue sky? Not turquoise, not the hue of a robin's egg - is it azure?

I don't know, and I haven't seen the shades of the Caribbean bays.

The clouds are tinged with pink. Distant trees frame the scene.

Closer, the prairie grass, invisible earlier at the height of summer, has come into its day and mounted its throne.

So alive - green lower stems,

blood red at mid-stalk joint,

green again,

and red again at its highest stem.

There is red and gold along the top stems

A feathery scythe in the wind

A stalk, a hundred, a thousand stalks reach with the wind

longing to fly. Waves of grass

giving life to the wind.

The sea of grass whispers, but uses no words.

It's dry water, taller than I.

Blood rises in the stalks, reaching to the ends,

to the grains - rich yellow grains,

and some nearly purple.

Dancing tall grass

purple stripes on the leaves

I walk down the drive

and to me, the grass bows.

-SLG