Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PRAIRIE CALM, by ELLEN DRINKWATER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PRAIRIE CALM, by                    
First Line: Sometimes I think
Last Line: And plenty -- for millions of cattle to drink.
Subject(s): Kansas; Prairies; Water; Wells; Plains


(In certain parts of western Kansas the under-ground
water is so far down that it cannot be
pumped by hand, and if the wind does not
blow so the wind-mill can pump it, there is
no water.)

Sometimes I think
that cattle love the wind, the boisterous
wind that raves and snorts and picks up soil
to hurl it far and cast it in a roadside ditch.

For I have seen
cattle stand beside an empty water tank
first with mild-mannered patience;
later, restless, pawing, showering earth.
I have lain awake hearing them
while men rode fences all the night
to see if they were breaking out.

My anxious eyes
have sought the great mill wheel,
listless and still; my strained ears
aching to catch a stirring of the wind.
I have seen the days and nights
make up a week when I would only sip
a mouthful from the wooden pail,
and found that mouthful hard to swallow.

Yes, the cattle and I
have known this maddening wait,
not once, but so many times that gladly
will I wipe away the dust a great wind brings,
for I know it will lift cool water
three hundred feet -- enough
and plenty -- for millions of cattle to drink.





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