A Poem On A Monday

There are places you can go to watch the Iowa DNR burn the prairie. I've gone to see it a time or two--the last time was near Iowa City, and the experience sparked this poem:

County Park

They burn the prairie, hope for wind,

control the wild before lightning does,

clear out evasive plants, raze the native

seeds asleep for years beneath,

their memories of buffalo, of native feet,

then schooners. We give the land back,

wash our hands in the smoke,

let orange heat breathe the life back in

to local texture. Miles west, open windows

claim the sacred scent. This is our birth

and death. Fire circles tall grass, two forks

connect, the flames insist, they mean

to blister. Pheasant and singed bits

lift from their blanket roots, as if from nowhere. 

All this sting to reclaim the flat tract of grass,

a kind of harvest our bodies know,

our living hardly felt without

failure, our having gone.

Casey Lord