Flint Hills Runner
I.
All day wind
Sprints through
The grass and never
Gets out of breath.
II.
At night no one to play
Catch with or run
For a pass unless
You count the stars.
III.
At dawn it races
For the hilltop
Before sun leans across
That gray ribbon of creek.
IV.
Who can explain
Something so ancient,
That seeps from the rocks,
And rises from the earth?
V.
The old rancher
Stands at his barn
Watching for what
Chases that old boy.
[
Thomas Reynolds is an associate English professor at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas, and has published poems in various print and online journals, including New Delta Review, Alabama Literary Review, Aethlon-The Journal of Sport Literature, The MacGuffin, Flint Hills Review, and Prairie Poetry. Woodley Press of Washburn University published his poetry collection Ghost Town Almanac in 2008. His chapbook The Kansas Hermit Poems was published in 2013.
chosen by Dennis Etzel Jr.
Dennis Etzel Jr. lives with Carrie and the boys in Topeka, Kansas where he teaches English at Washburn University. His chapbook The Sum of Two Mothers was released by ELJ Publications in 2013, and his work has appeared in Denver Quarterly, Indiana Review, BlazeVOX, Fact-Simile, 1913: a journal of poetic forms, 3:AM, DIAGRAM, and others. He is a TALK Scholar and Speaker for the Kansas Humanities Council, and volunteers for the YWCA of Topeka and Midland Hospice. His website is http://www.dennisetzeljr.com.
Dennis says, “This ecopoem connects for me place with nature with human. The space that happens while running is where this poem becomes as testimony for the Flint Hills. The questions of existence are here, as well as the cycle of life in the last stanza. Thank you for this poem, Thomas!”
The Coop: A Poetry Cooperative 