A Wisconsin Poet’s Guide to Nebraska

1.
Long thoughts no longer, only
a line

or two or three.

2.
When you
don't

have mountains
the clouds

have to
do.

3.
Wind, like
a shepherd,
gathers up
 
clouds.

Hawk, like
the wind's

harbinger.

4.
Now torn
clouds above

the torn
land. Shadow
 
of nothing
falls on

nothing.

5.
A field of cattle
and at greater

distance, stones.
This is not

Chicago.

6.
Perhaps you are not
middlewestern.

Perhaps you were born
to these sandhills.

Hawk on the fence post
says, “Hello, brother.”
 
7.
Low clouds
and the shadow of clouds

all the way to Omaha.

—Tom Montag, Fairwater, WI

 

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