Classic and Contemporary Poetry
PIPESTONE, MINNESOTA, by MARION VAN LANINGHAM First Line: I saw your red rock, pipestone Last Line: Slopes of the prairies. Subject(s): Minnesota | ||||||||
I saw your red rock, Pipestone, Symbol of peace, sturdy and elemental, Hewn from the sleeping strata And fashioned into neat little blocks To make the cornerstones, the foundations, And the structure of your neat little city. I saw huge fragments, Pipestone, Great chunks grown old and pockmarked, Eroded like Indian chiefs, too proud to ask a favor, The last, the lost from the scattered tribes of the nations, Too crude to be divided, too rugged to set in a pattern, Squatting, discarded, in a desert of silence. Scarred by the frost wedge, facing the blizzards, Staring blindly into the sun . . . I mused, Pipestone, On the red of the shattered scalp, The fierce vermillion of warrior paint, The white pallor of pioneer lips And the gray brains of a child scattered on a boulder near a hillside . . . I thought the deep thoughts of the red race, A sturdy race, lying deep in the sod, Knowing only the deep peace of the quiet earth Where the belching smokes of coal fires Pour the peace fumes over the heaving Slopes of the prairies. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...PRIMORDIA IN THE NORTHWEST by WALLACE STEVENS DRIVING TOWARD THE LAC QUI PARLE RIVER by ROBERT BLY DRIVING THROUGH MINNESOTA DURING THE HANOI BOMBINGS by ROBERT BLY A LEGEND OF MINNESOTA by LILLIAN ATCHERSON NORTHERN MINNESOTA by MONTA W. KIRKCONNELL MINNESOTA LANDSCAPE by LOUISE LEIGHTON A TRIBUTE TO MINNESOTA by LETITIA A. WILCOX FARM IN WESTERN MINNESOTA by ROBERT BLY ROLL-CALL by MARION VAN LANINGHAM |
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