The great green earth revolves and in
Its turn to us reveals not active fate
Nor recompense on scoria ground
But quiet talks at the gate.
Our lanes of back-east pastureland
Listen in on winter light,
As haunted as I feel haunted by
The 9/11 strike I
Carry still, and then come snowy
Hoof creaks, horses drawing near,
The scent on barnyard clothes
My swamp of inland wetland fear
For my own; while close-in coyotes
Expostulate on Wagner’s themes
And jackrabbits dive in dodging wisps
Swift as brainless smithereens;
Spooked antelope return to graze
With calves in wary winter herds,
Their ears alert to rifle bolts
And flash-ups of birds
North Dakota, state of hardy
Sons at ease on sunlit ice,
Home to grandfolk immigrants
Whose blessings strike us twice or thrice;
For offspring here are worded folk
Who heard it at the grocery store
Or from the priest or minister
Tolling gospel truth and more,
And here our hearts remain diverse,
But divided since the steam and rail
And rush of trains arrived and left
Half the land as bare as paint; we bale
And feed and farm and ranch, and pull
On pairs of taped-up overshoes
Or green-stained cowboy boots
To drink our winter beer or booze
At Friday rancher-rigger fights
Although in homicides we rate
Lowest in the forty-eight—one
Per year, but that in utter hate
I dare essay—with expertise
In backing trucks, cattle trailers
ATVs in cavalries,
And blankety-blank round balers
Somber seeing the northern lights
And sunsets in tricolor strands,
Resignation the mainstay of our
Solitude; it never stands
To reason then that sons and daughters
End in Minneapolis
Or on a foreign shore to stem
The fractured tide of hapless polis
Discontent. So in 2002
I reach through my increasing years
To progeny who hold the line
Five thousand miles from my fears.
“Prolegomena,” “Deserted Barn,” and “Hawk’s Nest” by Larry Woiwode were all previously published by North Dakota State University Press and are printed here with kind permission.
