1.1: Serenade in a Kansas Wind, Malcolm Childers

Serenade in a Kansas Wind

Malcolm Childers

Stand

just here,

in such a way

that the sweeping

copper lines converge--

an ever-shrinking

prophetic mirage

in both directions

toward the horizon.

Now

close your eyes

and lean your head back,

so that the sun can wash

your salty brow.

In the amber half light

behind your lids,

your thoughts will focus

on what your mind can see

and

something of the middle ground--

what it means to be in this place

where East becomes West--

will reach out

and touch you.

From the early

supple greens of spring,

this great grass ocean

begins to spill,

flow,

and flower in the wind.

During those living months,

birds and insects

dance and sing--

a primal buzzing,

twittering floor show

of sex,

predation,

and passing.

Like

a grand expeditionary force,

they spread a thousand miles north from here

into Manitoba.

Then drying,

their life

begins to fall back

like a defeated army

clad in the the hissing

brittle yellow of autumn.

It retreats

a thousand miles

south from here

into Tamaulipas.

Maybe you can sense

there used to be

more.

Perhaps

you can just hear

the American Serengeti

that was.

The endless brown armadas

of large animals

plying the grass ocean,

the indigenous nomads

who moved with them,

who lived from them,

who knew great risk

and even greater freedom,

who danced and sang

their primal invocations

of sex,

predation,

and passing.

Perhaps

you can just hear

what it was like

before these wires

crossed the sky,

before the time

of white men,

before everything changed

to conform

to their European

God-given mandate

to subdue

and possess the earth.

Still

sometimes,

in the thin winter light,

long after the vacationers

have hurried through

without seeing,

without caring,

as if they had never been;

and only an occasional semi

reads the icy concrete pages

as it passes indifferently

from Dodge to Wichita,

the wires themselves

will sing.

And the sound of it.

How to describe

that sound.

It is

as if all

that has passed here in time

where we stand

listening

comes again

as a chorus of the ages.

Within

the penetrating hum

and breathy moan of it,

are the lowing of wild herds,

the intimate passion and birth cries

of native women,

the ceremonial chants

of their men,

the screech of wheeling hawks,

the last prayers of wounded settlers and dying braves,

the raging curses of betrayal,

the brass of victory bands,

the hammering of builders,

the buzzing of back-room dealers,

the twittering of evening ladies,

the rhythmic songs of workmen,

the whistles and calls of cowboys,

the throaty din of tractors,

the quiet songs of farm wives,

and the lonely rumble

of distant trains passing through at
twilight.

Within the soft

and strident passages

of that longing sound

there are melodies

of a subtle and oceanic nature.

Within those lost chords

are intervals

that might

change the world

if we only could hear them.

If we only knew them.

But then

it’s only you and I listening,

and the quite serenade rings

endlessly on

as if no one

will ever

answer the phone.