Here with the certainty that sun
climbs the Bear's Paw Mountains every morning
I return to the warmth each summer
Walk the prairie roads
when the sun's hands touch mountain tops
 
When they open perfume
on purple clover blossoms
Burnish pheasant feathers to a spit shine
And snap the stereo switch
that sets roosters and meadowlarks to music
 
A Chinook from the west
turns wheat into soft wind chimes
And cottonwood leaves
bend their ears into the whispers
While Cree ten miles east
talk to their God at this time every A.M.
 
The farmers rise and pray for rain clouds
to cry over dust depressed crops
But I welcome the hands of dawn
How they wander over my unbuttoned body
Strip the gray from daybreak
Stain my skin a kindle wood brown
Inject the fuel to burn for another year


This poem first appeared in The Aurorean.
Used here with the author’s permission.