Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, KANSAS, by GLEN BAKER


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

KANSAS, by                    
First Line: This land of undulating prairies
Last Line: To roll across the national sky.
Subject(s): Abolitionists; Brown, John (1800-1859); Kansas; Slavery; Anti-slavery; Serfs


this land of undulating prairies,
this geographic center of the nation,
a veritable Pandora's box
out of which has risen
many strange and irrelevant things:
Jayhawkers with a New England conscience,
John Brown the Ossawatomie abolitionist,
Carrie Nation and her crusading hatchet,
Prohibition! "Sockless Jerry Simpson" running for Congress,
Doctor John R. Brinkley,
the modern medical magician, renovator of old men.
Kansas is a long series of exclamation marks
in the national mind.

large counties pieced together like a crazy quilt,
towns and cities appliqued upon its surface,
old world names and new:
Wichita, Topeka, Wakarusa,
Runnymede, Humboldt, St. John;
one enormous fabric intricately quilted by many roads.
A tourist camp sign:
"Coronado passed through here,
try our cabins (75c.)."
grain elevators in long rows like wet-cell batteries
germinating the strength of a nation.
Kansas is a shrewd old man
with white hair and young eyes
looking toward the future,
enjoying the amazement of his contemporaries.
when it thunders in Kansas
that is only the tumbleweed of public opinion
gathering momentum enough
to roll across the national sky.





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