Plains
I grew up in the flat state of Oklahoma. I feel like neither The Great Plains nor Oklahoma get much attention. That is where my mind started with this one.
In the plains storms come clearly from miles away The clouds roll in The rain fallin Like a gray curtain Off in the distance It can be scary to see everything coming But it is also assuring That comforting feeling of knowing Open sky’s bring clarity Flat land’s predictability Unfettered by towers and trees The breeze blows freely Drive in a straight line for hours Seeing everything available Even the lights of the town next to ours The plains offered sight In both day and night Just open and raise your eyes Oklahoma won’t hide Look all the way to Kansas But Arkansas throws up a tree line And I went East leaving the plains behind Beautiful trees Cause seasonal allergies Puffy eyes and sneezing Through the woods you just can’t see The hills bend the roads Make the brakes squeal Leave a queasy feel Not knowing what’s around Or what the up hides coming down A scared deer about to bound Or if the road turns to unpaved ground Uncertainty waits in the dark Clouds appear in the day Never know what’s coming your way But keep going East Get through the trees And hit the Mississippi River delta It’s flatter and hot But it’s really not All that different from Arkansas Except the population goes up by a lot In the mid-sized city of Memphis Bumps in the road are relentless In spite of the foresight of storms over the river Trees and sky Water flowing by A city good sized All should be right But nothing has changed Because what I saw was nothing on the plains That became clear in the Arkansas trees Because I am the same though I moved East Now, in the Bluff City I clearly see That I was never free To simply be me Blowing with ideas like the wheat Growing in knowledge like the trees Flowing with thoughts like the river Unable to sell or deliver All the insight and uncertainty In the chaff of those with their eyes down Never truly looking around At what is and could be Simply by imagining Our ecosystems limit But I grew up in the open We are shaped by where we live But we can move and mold them Yet the plains are a metaphor The trees like a simile, or maybe more Since they grow on the plains though they’re pretty short And the city breaks down all the words before As comparisons run thin And imagination runs out The poetry falls apart Like trees in a tornado that rips through all three Ecologically distinct Geographical parts Whether seen coming Or only heard It doesn’t matter Just like these words Thought through and put together For a world that doesn’t care Like flowering heather Magnolias or cedars These words will be lost like the author In the winds on the plains That get caught in the leaves Stifled in the woods leaving the delta little breeze Since this is the case I probably should have stayed Back there in the plains Where I could see it all far away But the wind blows and the trees sway If I had stayed where would I be today