"The Horizon Stays the Same "

"The Horizon Stays the Same"

Greg Budig 2020

The horizon has been breached. 

A thin muted gold line divides it.

Breaking the fragile plane 

between morning and night. 

Glowing in layers, watercolor 

hues. Yellow, apricot and 

red bleed slowly into the 

dissolving purple black sky.  

The prairie horizon awakens.

The nighthawks have been 

calling long before the 

residential robins opened 

up their eyes.  Diving and 

twisting on banded wings. 

Slicing the morning air. 

Meadowlarks echo over the 

landscape, familiar music 

to those who listen.  

Poets of the prairie horizon. 

Waves of tall grasses 

roll and surge 

towards the horizon.  

So many shades of green 

blend softly into amber. 

Bluestem, sedges, 

dropseed and cordgrass.

Moving on the breeze 

in synchronized waves,

like a prairie ballet. 

The pothole sits round 

amongst the cattails 

and slough pumpers. 

Sticky black mud smelling 

sweetly of decay. 

Redwings trill while the 

yellow heads screech,

marsh wrens chatter 

and bicker in the reeds. 

Fence posts stride in 

jagged lines and then vanish 

like dots on the horizon. 

Fields of grains, beans and 

corn stitched together 

like squares in a quilt. 

The farmer is rooted in the 

soil, like the cottonwood 

out behind the old barn. 

A romanticized vision 

for artists and poets. 

Lost sacred grounds for 

the Lakota and Sioux.

A new home for settlers,

 the immigrant families. 

The prairie is always 

changing, but the 

horizon stays the same. 

The End