Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, CLEORA BECOMES A DAKOTAN, by HARRIET SEYMOUR POPOWSKI


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

CLEORA BECOMES A DAKOTAN, by                    
First Line: Cleora rose and shivered, looking out
Last Line: "you don't hear the wind after while . . . Or mind it . . . Much"" . . ."
Subject(s): Wind


Cleora rose and shivered, looking out
Across the prairie where the cottonwoods
Whipped to the frenzied flapping of the wind.
"If only the wind would stop," she said. "Back east
In Saugatuck the dogwood is in bloom,
And in that riot of pink the rambling walls
Wander off to the haze, and over the earth
A blessed silence rests. Here the wind
Is never done with blowing, day or night.
I shall go crazy listening I think."

Old Man Martin shifted his fresh eggs
In their straw basket to the other knee,
And his quid of tobacco to the other cheek,
As the wind came tearing at the kitchen pane.
"Well," he said, "I heard 'em tellin' now
About a farm here in Dakoty once
Where the wind stopped blowin' a' sudden one summer's day
And all the chickens fell down, plumb flat. Yes, ma'am.
They leaned 'em up against the chicken shed
Till they got their stren'th and bearin's back, I guess.
Take me now. I grew up back east -- Vermont;
But I lived here a long time and y'know
You don't hear the wind after while, or mind it much.
The Missus used to say them early years
It'd blowed every day but one since we folks come
And that was the day of the kite contest. Not one
Of them durned things'd get off the ground a mite."

Cleora laughed and paid for the fresh eggs.
And Old Man Martin hobbled off toward town
Fighting the streaming wind with every step.
"You don't hear the wind after while . . . or mind it . . . much" . . .





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