Crossing the Prairie by Geraldine Green

There goes green corn
fierce as tornadoes
her cougar skin rippled
her bright eyes dazed with
dust-storms and headlights
she crosses the prairie on
her greencorn song of misery
upright as telegraph poles
lining the freeways.

Boy whistles wind
wind comes running
wind combs her back
of greengold corn
for a hundred miles
combs greencorn hair.

Nightstars crackle
moonwafer breaks open.

At dawn, a deluge of buffalo
at dawn, their ghosts cross the plain
at dawn, their notorious herd of steam
their outrageous breath
their sweat and blood
their sinews and bones.

These ghosts of buffalo.
These man-haunting bison.

Ghost bison pound earth
their hooves the pestle
this land their mortar.

Look! a city catapults
itself across the sky:

a wave of cities
a deluge of buffalo
a rivering of ghosts.

Grass cracked moons
grass tricky as coyote
grass spilling greengold
handsome as cougar

moon mirror cracks
buffalo stampede
into dust
into headlights.

Geraldine Green, from ‘The Other Side of the Bridge’ pub. by Indigo Dreams 2012