Photo by John P Salvatore under creative commons international license 4.0
Four Poems for The Flint Hills and The Nature Conservancy of Kansas
by Denise Low
Jan, 2022
Jack Rabbit
The Flint Hills stretch to infinity—an abstract word meeting
you here on this hill. The motion in grass
might be wind but no, the jagged path shows where a bony
jackrabbit flees. They fear people.
This autumn afternoon disappears as sun rouges the west or maybe
it continues in another dimension.
Listen. Your breath ripples the bluestem grass. Your eyes see
beyond the creek leading sky to darkness.
Past and future merge at the horizon and last forever. You travel
this kingdom with Coronado, before he left
Quivera, before he wrote about land “so vast I did not find
the limit anywhere I went.”
Some days thunderheads explode in the skies with lightning bolts
so loud the ground shakes. Rainbows follow.
Millions of stars speckle the night. All people who once lived here
surround us. Red-tail hawks keep watch.
Flint Hills Grass Ocean
Grass hovers above earth grazes sky
multiple strands of warp dangling. No weft
but a line of vole nests along horizons
at your feet. Sky begins at ground-level.
No illusion Rocky Mountain gusts
lost for miles stop at your back push
a hard hand between shoulder blades.
Wind probes your flesh-covered wings.
Lift feet. You fly with seed heads
ever eastward the downstream pattern
traced in air like stems flattened the same
direction after a flood. Dragonflies circle ponds.
Open your fingers. Like grass, you feel
forces beyond your control. You feel belief.
Council Grove Reservoir: American Vultures
Black angels—buzzards—
roost every other post
along the pier. This powder blue
afternoon juggles a lemon sun.
Below, a trapped river muddles
the lake’s surface. Underwater
spirits call to each other
in currents, repeating names:
Wildcat Creek, Canning Creek,
Short Creek, the Neosho.
Wind sweeps away traces
of all tongues. Vanished
are buffalo hunters, drovers,
women and swaddled babies—
all who passed through these hills
on the journey to Paradise.
Flint
Bear-brown stones of my hometown
turn up in arrowhead collections
miles away chipped into points
of interest. Also blades and tips.
I saw one embedded in a skull
on a girl scout trip to the museum
before stolen bones were reburied.
A solid stuck in another solid.
A Ho-Chunk man Darren Snake
drove with us through the hills
amazed at miles of flint. Easy
to stop and fill a bag full.
Not dull dirt but its coppery sheen—
beauty of pressed quartz—shines,
fractured along lay lines of power
and weakness. Sharp when broken.
Hefty palm-sized nodules fit
into the hand. Fingers closed,
the ax is ready, fight ready.
Or flint lies face down. Waits.
Denise Low, Ph.D., was second poet laureate of Kansas. Her books include award winning poetry, most lately Wing (Red Mountain Press), Shadow Light (Editor's Choice Award, Red Mountain Press), and A Casino Bestiary (Spartan). Her book Turtle's Beating Heart: A Lenape Story of Survival is published with University of Nebraska Press, as well as Northern Cheyenne Ledger Art by Fort Robinson Survivors. She founded the creative writing program at Haskell Indian Nations University, where she taught and was an administrator for 25 years. She is a 5th generation Kansan and has British Isles and Lenape and Munsee (Delaware) heritage. Find her at: deniselow.net
The mission of The Nature Conservancy (nature.org) is to conserve the lands and waters on which all life depends. For more than 30 years, we’ve worked in Kansas to do just that. We've permanently protected 190,000 acres across the state, including five preserves that are open to the public.