Poetry Friday: The Prairie Town

Main Street, Burlington, Colorado, Reflected in the Bank Window

The Prairie Town
by Helen Santmyer


Lovers of beauty laugh at this grey town,
Where dust lies thick on ragged curb-side trees,
And compass-needle streets lead up and down
And lose themselves in empty prairie seas.

Here is no winding scented lane, no hill
Crowned with a steepled church, no garden wall
Of old grey stone where lilacs bloom, and fill
The air with fragrance when the May rains fall.

But here is the unsoftened majesty
Of the wide earth where all the wide streets end,
And from the dusty corner one may see
The full moon rise, and flaming sun descend.

The long main street, whence farmers’ teams go forth,
Lies like an old sea road, star-pointed north.

Trade out the "teams" for pickup trucks, and this is my hometown. Where I'll be for a couple of weeks starting next week. Looking forward to some "Mom Time!"

 

This poem was a Poets.org poem-a-day recently.

Heidi has the Red, White and Blue edition of the Poetry Friday Roundup at her blog, My Juicy Little Universe.