At first glance
the prairie is boring.
Face it,
it’s flat.
No oceans, no mountains
just grass
everywhere you look.
It’s so boring you eventually
look up.
And then you see
the sky is alive,
it pulses with clouds.
One minute it is a plausible
picnic day;
checkered blanket,
a game of badminton, perhaps
some lemon tea.
Then the scent of the wind
changes, the crows start to caw.
Looks of alarm, hurried
folded blankets,
nowhere to run
except the car.
You duck under the dashboard
and wait.
A vaccuum silence,
a thunder clap,
the roar of rain on the roof.
A sigh, a pause, a pitter pat,
and the sun shines again
on the prairie.
Laura Balster has loved poetry since childhood, and has been writing it since a teenager. She studied Literature at Wilmington College in Ohio and has since lived in Colorado, California, and New York City. She settled down and started a family in Oklahoma and has lived there for 37 years. She fell in love with the prairie and its people; these poems celebrate that.