Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, OKLAHOMA, by DAISY LEMON COLDIRON


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

OKLAHOMA, by                    
First Line: A hungry kiowa
Last Line: It is -- oklahoma!
Subject(s): Native Americans; Oklahoma; Indians Of America; American Indians; Indians Of South America


A hungry Kiowa
And one lone buffalo,
Inseparably yoked together,
Retreating over a jack-oak hill
Into the sunset:

Seas of tossing horns,
Seething, milling feet,
Crooning voices of cowboys
Ridin' herd for the Bar L --
Fretting the Trail:

Dark boomer figures creeping --
"This time we go to stay!"
Converging of the Riders!
Stars look down on bannered stakes
Of Destiny.

What is Oklahoma?
Cities stacked against the sky?
Or a lonely shack in the paseo of the winds?

Cattle serenely grazing on a thousand hills,
Or a tumble bug busily pushing his ball of dung
In the dust of the trail?

The redbuds' crimson scarf flung out along the wind
Or a cracked pot of petunias abloom in the window
Of the blackest of "God's chillun"?

Is it these cities of steel derricks where men trade God for gold,
Or the universal "pay sand" that lies deep
In the eyes of love?

Are these things Oklahoma?
No, Oklahoma is the distilled essence
Of the Red Men's glory and travail,
The thunder of the buffalo
And the mute tragedy of his bleaching bones;
The concordant symphonies that rise out of the kinship of struggle,
Orchestrated by the divine right to grow;
The surge of the multitudinous voices that swell
The dynamic heart of a young Commonwealth;
The firmamental silences that bathe the Pleiades
And flow mellifluously around the throne of God.

It is the lonely howl of a grey-wolf
Across the pensive prairie moon;
The sudden pain of beating wings against the blackness
Of the far horizon;

It is a girl at the well curb as the dawn breaks over
The primitive plains in the spring
And the mysteries of another Dawn whisper
In her crescent soul:

It is a barefoot boy at the gates of Life
Unshapen worlds in his hands
And a question mark in his eyes.

It is the music of unborn feet beating a pathway
Down the years to meet the silence
Of eternity.

It is something invisible,
Like the luminous wings of a dream,
Something sweetly wild and lonely --
Though sometimes sad beyond compare!

It is -- it is the Burning Bush
Of the mystic Unknown --
It is -- Oklahoma!





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