Prairie Views

"White dewdrops hang to wild grass,
as seasons flow by fast and change.
Autumn cicadas rub their wings in trees.
Where have black swallows migrated to?"
        – from the Han Dynasty







From Brices Prairie the Wisconsin
horizon is a barn roof and bluffside.
Clouds mute the palette of prairie
to rich yellows of goldenrod.
At the ninth month purple coneflowers
have turned to seed and now serve
as towers for hordes of grasshoppers.
As we walk near the edges of field
the stems begin to click in thousands.
Fewer bumblebees than month
previous clasp and sip at thistle.
Sounds of fall turn brittle but clean,
no birdsong but the hawk's scream.
The full-winged Monarch now
caramel glass heaving-up abdomen,
soon but a beautiful brown dust.