Hours of American Prairie

We took a walk over the silicates the luster

and much dullness that is the incremental

breakdown of an inland sea-bed of we

who script cirrus lenticular waxing gibbous

over the lake surface its infinite metals

cut by buffleheads and grebes and wind

from one of many directions we received

the grebes’ red stripe itinerant signals

written into us remainders of migration

over American prairie many homes making

easy comfort in that dirt in the birded

views where we marked arrivals wigeons

gadwalls coots every year fewer rising

in eye-waters every year more we to braid

with birds between dips the grebes’

red stripe struck the red receptors of us

the hours of ourness breaking down in grass

where our minds could green or nest next