Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AN EARLY PIONEER, by MAMIE A. MELOY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AN EARLY PIONEER, by                    
First Line: Against the soft, dark velvet of this case
Last Line: That spread from nineveh to now!
Subject(s): Farm Life; Pioneers; Agriculture; Farmers


Against the soft, dark velvet of this case
Corn spills, from bursting pouch of old gray skin,
Its seam hand-sewn in yucca thread;
"How pitiful," I think; "why give it place?"
And bend to read, "five thousand years ago -- "
That spring she grew this corn for bread!

She knew this land we love and call our own!
Our redbuds' cloudy pink in early spring
And wild plum blossoms white, far-flung
Along Canadian and Cimarron.
She saw our far horizon's distant blue
When Egypt's pyramids were young!

Our prairie primrose softly bloomed for her
On starry nights, with Babylon unborn;
She heard our kildee's poignant cry
The day that Abraham went out from Ur.
Before dark oxen plowed the plains of Troy
Our keening winds wailed down her sky.

Exult -- that time and chance should save
This human bond her brown hands threw to us!
Exult, all humble folk who plow --
Who plant, and gather grain -- in her who gave
This pouch of seeds across the silences
That spread from Nineveh to Now!





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