I Saw The Fleeting Clouds Above The Plains

[my American dream]

I saw the fleeting clouds above the Plains

in my own mind;

the beautiful are not always fleet,

I cried.

I saw them massing in silver

in amethyst in rose in tropical orange

above Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska;

I saw the fine snows like lace, attending-

the stranded cattle moaning.

doomed Orion, clouded in the blizzards

and those who lost their homes,

their will to live.

and those who fell in wars.

or strokes, from overwork;

their skylark measures turned to dust.

the inheritors of rust.

I saw the tall grasses bending under the cyclones;

and marooned, the homesteads gone

from Oklahoma on toward the Dakotas

in a sea of grass and all that was past.

the mountain passages closed.

the ships that sailed on land-

for fool's gold.

the Faith that ploughed, ploughed under sod.

oh God. the clouds return, as fleet and charged

with meanings as before.

let the beautiful return again

let the beautiful return again

mary angela douglas 11 june 2014