II. Big Blue Stem At Night
J. Quinn Brisben
Wind raises dust in dry months
And sometimes a full moon just above
The horizon will seem to expand into
A terrific disc of glowing orange
And, for a once or twice in a lifetime
Treat, something on a rise miles away
Will expand to the limits of the disc.
I have never seen this but Tecumseh
And his brother the Prophet and Black Hawk
Perhaps saw a distant buffalo framed
Like the one depicted on the nickel
They stopped minting in 1940,
The one celebrated by Sandburg when
It was brand-new: “Runners on the prairie,
Goodbye” but we can see again
Big blue stem grass at night. Moons
Like that do come. I saw one once
East of Decatur after delivering
Food to locked out workers and
Helping an old friend get sober for
That stupendous moon, so possibly
With the big blue stem coming back
And the buffalo raised now to keep
Alive some sense of the past of
Our prairie, someone might stand
Among big blue stem and see a buffalo
Framed in a great moon. Runner, hello.
