Migratory Patterns by K. L. Barron

Sedges of cranes glean

fieldcorn along the Platte

edge of the solstice in spring

Even we, multiplied and divided

forage for sustenance among dry stalks

Ten million years taking turns on the drafts

twenty at a time from Mexico to Siberia

moving forward to return

We rise to our height in years

hovering now at fifty percent elevation

Restless redheads

with a penchant for wetlands

they’ve made it this far by sticking their necks out and dancing

Now empty nesters

we grasp each other’s drafts to stay aloft

Balancing in shallow water

they rest, digest meals, miles

avoiding aggression to protect progression

We jump in the deep

splashing our way to the other side

They rise suddenly from predators, the entire sky, applause

such sequential stirring upward

tipping the world

We recognize such commotion

our souls sometimes flutter from our bodies

They land near every year

Calling us with familiar voices

vibrating us like strings of violins

Here in Kansas, we migrate from spring to winter and back

from tallgrass to liquid

our edges, feathers

~K. L. Barron

K.L. Barron writes in the Flint Hills, the rolling interior contours of the creative mind. Her work has been published in New Letters, The Bennington Review, The Little Balkans Review, terrain.org. etc., & anthologies. She teaches writing at Washburn University and is currently writing a novel set in the Sahara.

Stephen Meats, recently retired from teaching and administration at Pittsburg State University, is the author of a mixed genre collection of poems and stories, Dark Dove Descending and Other Parables (Mammoth Publications, 2013) and a collection of poems, Looking for the Pale Eagle (Woodley Press, 1993; expanded edition, Mammoth Publications, 2014). His poems, stories, and scholarly writings have appeared in numerous print and online publications, including more than two dozen articles on Whitman, Faulkner, and other writers in The Literary Encyclopedia. He has been poetry editor of The Midwest Quarterly since 1985. For his Kansas Time + Place guest editorship, in addition to poems with Kansas associations, he asked contributors to submit work dealing with shore birds and water birds, if moved to do so, in recognition of his and his wife Ann’s recent move to Florida.