Arkansas River Valley

By John I. Blair

Some land seems naturally doomed:
In central Kansas, grassy hills
Fade westward to a plain

Where glaciers in a primal melt
Flushed three million acres flat –
So flat furrows feebly drain.

Pioneers whose fathers cursed
The stumps and rocks in eastern fields
Rejoiced. This soil surrendered fast.

They gave no mercy,
Cutting roads at every mile,
Blocking farms in rigid squares.

Now this, the winter wheat belt’s heart,
Still beats in bondage,
Like a prairie that’s entombed.

©2009 John I. Blair

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