Moving

   I am happy to make the official announcement: We are moving to North Dakota!   My husband loves the mountains, which is what brought us out west, but I am a prairie girl.

   One of my first poems was about the prairie. It came about this way:  My poetry teacher wrote a poem about the mountains.  I copied his meter and wrote one about the Northwoods.  Afterward I thought there should be one about the prairie, too.  This is the poem:

The Prairie

   I want the open prairie,

      Where I can see the sky,

I want to lie in knee-high grass,

      And watch the clouds roll by.

   I want the prairie freshness,

      The hearty prairie gales,

The breeze that blows o’er grassy seas,

      And fills my soul’s limp sails.

   I want the prairie evening;

      The sun there lays her head,

And fills the vast horizon

      With blasts of gold and red.

   I want the prairie morning,

      The bliss of sweetest calm,

The rosy tints that warm the soul,

      And soothe with heaven’s balm.

   Oh, for the wide, wide prairie,

      Oh, for the vast expanse,

Where miles and miles of God’s blue sky

      Are mine in one sweet glance;

   Where dreams rise up to touch the clouds,

      And fill the feathery dome;

Where heaven reaches down to earth,

      And crowns my prairie home.