My Uncle Kurt, of Scandinavian decent, seemed to typify those men of the soil. My uncle the horse Drags his wagon through summers Praying for rain And abundant pastures. He escaped to the city where glass windows stole his best clothes and women with painted mouths ate his pockets clean. Pretended he was someone else, his mother's words trailing behind, like his dog, like the wheat, weaving away at the edges of things, where he sat in the dark going back over spring. People grow old and die on the same farm of their birth where the change is so subtle it is stifling.
Time deceptively pulls the farmers ever back to the earth.
With the women, life on the plains was a dismal existence and can still be that way for some. The big river bends at medicine Lodge where sand bars split the water clean and perch leap like rainbows in pale morning light gorged with small boys' dreams. Too much talk around pot bellied stoves, blunt beginnings that never worked from people who would move if they had a chance, watch Saturday night fights in the parking lot and reruns at the local bar. Cheatums and McClures shiver side by side beneath Little Blue Stem turning tough, in winters never wanted, but always came to stay. Trains rattle windows, fresh from the east, with glass- faced tourists waving goodbye.