KANSAS POEMS

HOME – Poetry by Karen Cerio

Flat lands, oceans of wheat, harvest hands, fields all neat friendly folks, warm smiles, country jokes, at home style, family fun, 4th of July, summer sun, stars in the sky, county fair, carnival lights, first place mare, dances at night, drive-in features, friends for life, old teachers, help in strife, tornado warnings, siren blasts. Sunday morning, faith that lasts, skies of blue, thunder clouds, grass with dew, funeral shrouds, simple food, gathering eggs, city dudes, bowed legs, hand shake deals, respect of man, prayerful kneels, God and land, parents and home, love and laughter, thoughts roam, forever after to Kansas.

FLINT HILLS – Poetry by Elisabeth Birky

Sun-drenched palette rolling hills extend beyond a cloudless horizon like a giant quilt. An artist’s motif colorful wildflowers nod waving gently to the baton of the perpetual breeze. Rich and varied grasses of every shade and hue beckon as with open palms to these majestic flint hills.

AN EXPATRIATE KANSAS RIDES THE TRAIN OF REMEMBERING – Poetry by Tom Reynolds

My trip into the vanished past is prodded by springs in my seat, cracked vinyl scraping an elbow, and thirst for water, not truth. This train ain’t bound for glory, just a slow sixty miles down country, through thickets and shorn fields, weaving on unsafe tracks. Today’s train ain’t no showpiece, just an engine and three rusted cars, soot seeping through cracks, till I wonder what I was thinking traveling into Kansas this way, my life there on that Oswego farm, surrounded by woods and trees, the slow trickle of a muddy creek, crags below the wooden bridge, a black hawk circling the hedge, the farmhouse beyond the hill, and despite all, enduring love. I should have gone first class.