you people who live in cities might say.
No buildings, no bleating herds of taxis,
no stampeding crowds.
But stay awhile and you will learn the way
along the yellow paths,
feel under your shoes the bones
of white flint, the broad root grid
that spreads each season’s current underground.
You will see how many days of stillness
it takes to make the sky move,
how many months of drought
to map a riverbed, how many years
of wind hammering to build
an empty skyline.
~ Pat Daneman
Pat Daneman has lived in Lenexa, Kansas since 1986. Recent work appears in The Moon City Review, I-70 Review, Bellevue Poetry Review, and The Comstock Review. Her chapbook, Where the World Begins, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. She is poetry co-editor of Kansas City Voices magazine.
Guest Editor: Israel Wasserstein, a Lecturer in English at Washburn University, was born and raised on the Great Plains. Her first poetry collection, This Ecstasy They Call Damnation, was a 2013 Kansas Notable Book. Her poetry and prose have appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Blue Mesa Review, Flint Hills Review, and elsewhere.
I like the quiet power of this very much. Nice work.
What a visceral poem. Fantastic. Thank you for sharing it.
What a wonderful poem–so spare, so fresh, and innately musical.
Wonderful work–so spare and innately musical.
Strong words delivered with grace. Just lovely.
♥ this poem Pat.