Holt County

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Denim pants and a cotton shirt
anticipate my plain speech,
testify that my home is no wilderness,
that for me locust are not a food but a fear.

Rather than honey I have tasted
the sturdy iambs of the plains
distilled from immigrant accents,
heard the poets raise their voices
in the night, calving wet little words
that dance in the yard, filling Manhattan mouths
with pleasure, bringing delight to
Boston tongues.

I have escaped the sun's bright assault
Beneath trees of verse arranged
In sky-bound perpendiculars
To temper wind, shade home and show
That the fields support more than grain.

No, I am not the first to sing of the plains.
I set my plow in the same hill-bent furrow
Sewing straight, rhymeless lines
in ancient dirt. Standing back, I am
well pleased at the fields' repetition:
Civil stanzas under Indian skies.

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