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STAGE SETTING KANSAS, by                    
First Line: Cottonwoods are limned against the sky tonight
Last Line: With coyote's wail portending unguessed fetes?


Cottonwoods are limned against the sky tonight,
Their fingers reaching to ensnare the moon;
And in the pasture -- somewhere out of sight,
A coyote wails his direful, chilling tune
While all the prairie waits in breathlessness --
For what, I do not know,
But habits of old years know deathlessness,
And prairies long ago
Were settings for real dramas of the age.
The unreality pervading here
Makes of the scene a weirdly lighted stage
Where, at a startled moment, may appear
The walking ghosts of all the yesterdays.
(A grimly silent cast),
To re-enact in pantomime those plays
From out the annals of a tragic past.
Is it for this the breathless prairie waits,
With coyote's wail portending unguessed fetes?





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