An Alchemy of Words

In Search of the Prairie Sea

"In Search of the Prairie Sea"

He remembers being struck

by the naked realization

that the white-winged birds

swooping low over the rolling wheat

were gulls,

searching for litter fish

in a windswept and golden ocean.

He always knew the feel

of seashells, filled and solid,

embedded deep within the stones

carried resolutely from the fields.

Even now, he almost cries

when he smells the white salt winds

blow in off the alkali.

Sometimes after swathing,

when the moon is low, ruddy, and rudderless,

he still goes out there,

brushes his finger across the whitened ground,

and tastes it once before returning home

to pray

for autumn

rain.