Prairie Poetry


Wading across the snowy field
lifting each foot high
sliding it to the next drift.

Maybe this will be the step
that dowesn't break the crust
plates of snow tiltiing like small ice floes under foot weight.

Wide prairie sky blue gray
with fleeting shadows
chasing each other across
the hay meadow.

Glasses off of glasses on
what caught my attention
an ear flick?
a sun glinted eye?
blinking against the glare
is it just a stump
or clump of sand willow.

moving slowly now
not just one doe or buck
ten of them
camoflauged in the snow
by grass and willow bunch

until they cannot bear my stealth
and with white flags faised
off they bound
as I examine where they have been

pawed up grass and
depressions in the snow
they were here
and now have gone.


Angus (April 2, 2002)