Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE PRAIRIE SPEAKS, by JAMES CHRISTIAN LINDBERG


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE PRAIRIE SPEAKS, by                    
First Line: I am the prairie singer
Last Line: I am the prairie singer.
Subject(s): Memory; Native Americans - Wars; Pioneers; Prairies; Spring; Plains


I am the Prairie Singer—
The ghost of the days that were;
I am the voice of the long-forgotten past,
I am the cry since time began.

I sing the chaos before creation was
When mists blew vagrantly across the deep;
Primordial life whose fossil prints remain,
Uncovered from ten thousand years of sleep.

Primeval days I sing, when dinosaurs
And wilder beasts fought for supremacy—
When glaciers, like slow, creeping monsters, crawled
Across the plains and buried all within
Their cold embrace.

I sing the untold stretch of centuries—
Not yet so far away but echoes bound
Across wide, troubled spaces,
From legendary places—
The golden age of buffalo and deer,
The stern, idyllic days of tepee loves
And hates, of tribal wars—these, too, I sing.

I sing forgotten trails of pioneers—
A silent memory of those who heard
The first, far call of virgin promises;
The broken wheel, the porous, whitening bones—
The ghostly relics of a day now gone.

Unnumbered miles of waving grain, I sing;
Sleek cattle grazing on a thousand hills,
Broad-streeted cities. busy thoroughfares—
And over all a benediction reigns.
Old orders change, new systems take their place—
These, too, I sing.

I am the hoarse, receding cry of Yesterday;
I am the passionate voice of the Elusive Now;
I am the exultant prophecy of a Better Day—
I am the Prairie Singer.





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