Jenny McBride – For The Coneflowers
For thousands of years
The Midwest sun woke to prairie.
For hundreds of years
These coneflowers have breathed here
Knowing searing summer’s heat
And fires
Knowing wolves and bison
Knowing a long, hard day
Where relentless winter sleep is night
And now they’re all that remain
Of all that remains
Of the flickering remnant of railroad prairie.
Mowed for the “safety” of bicyclists
The prairie is fading into thickening teasel,
Which the cyclists assume is a native plant.
This is getting dangerous.
Jenny McBride
Jan.-Feb. 2005 Earth First!
Date: March 20, 2016
Categories: Jenny McBride