I see a breeze in a silphium sea,

wild poppies bob beneath a poplar tree,

muddy pawprints in the rud-brown trails,

through plains, vales, and dense cattails.

I hear spring rains on greening prairie grains,

the distant whispers of sandhill cranes,

and passerines among the dense, dark pines.

A river winds past red columbines.

I feel a cool snap cause a quiver.

The sun’s blue light is just a sliver.

Crickets shiver. The sky’s a bright black lantern.

The pathway home is filled with thicket and fern.

I return to a land of lawn and concrete grids.

It’s dawn in the city of hominids.

Anthony Miller

Software engineer