So I told you last time I was going to have a poem for the library's poetry contest. Well, I missed the deadline for entry. Leave it to life to get in the way of entering stuff. Anyway, here's my final draft. You may notice there's more to it than the last attempt. The contest required a 150-word creation. My original "sonnet" was 117 words. So I had to add more. Enter haiku. I added three haiku verses to reach 150 words. And thus, a new form was born - the hai-son. Or perhaps a son-ku. I haven't decided.
Prairie Lights
I.
You see Friday night
Lights, not just on football fields
But all through the town.
II.
There's a song by C.W. McCall called
Aurora Borealis. In it, he tells
Of a city boy who hadn’t seen the stars
Or the Milky Way. I wonder if the swells
and swirls of the prairie eluded him also,
if he'd ever seen the wheat, gold under sun,
or felt the fierce terror of a tornado
or watched the light vanish below the horizon.
I'm guessing not.
I'm fortunate that way.
I've watched the sun fade out and stars fade in.
But it took a southern semester before, I must say,
their splendor rose again above the din
Of busy life and no chance there to see.
They give perspective, out here on the prairie.
III.
Pioneers called it
Great American Desert.
They crossed anyway.
IV.
Inextricably
Linked, windmills and water draw
New lives to the land.
