NAVIGATING THE PLATTE ©

Watch where you walk
on the banks of the Platte.
Under the sand is a river of graves
overflowing with dreams
more than a century old
back when covered wagons
navigated the dry riverbed.

Watch where you walk
on the banks of the Platte.
The sand is quick
and quickening to life
heaving up with ice flows in winter
running to five channels in spring
but mostly a dry riverbed
where wheels sink to the rim
never to turn again.

Watch where you walk
on the banks of the Platte.
It was there they turned under
the graves and the buffalo grass
with heavy wooden plows, lumbering
deep in the cadaver loam
where they found new dreams
with each turn of the soil.

Watch where you walk
on the banks of the Platte
where you'll sink to the rim

never doubt it.



Closing the Gate, Nightshade Press, 1993