She tried to move the Black Hills.
                        One stone at a time they came,
                        gradually being  relocated amidst the 
                        beet fields of western Nebraska.

                        Each visit to her sister in Sturgis
                        brought another load, stones for
                        paths and gardens front and back,
                        for friends' gardens too, 
                        and strangers if they asked.

                        Pretty rocks, she called them.
                        Iron ore, granite, sandstone,
                        mica peeling little sheets of glass,
                        and iron pyrite, "fools gold."

                        A rebellion against sameness,
                        against stolid, German stoicism

                        Now she's gone.
                        The Black Hills remain, unmoved.
                        Do the "pretty rocks" still glisten
                        in the Nebraska sun?