Great Plains, Great Cities

I sit out on the front porch in the dry Texas heat

And look out at the flowers and trees waving in the breeze

I think back to days long gone, lost to the urban world

A time when buffalo roamed the land and the prairie stretched on and on

Horses, wild and free, ruled this realm

No man set foot on this rugged land or marred its untamed beauty

But creatures passed unseen, unheard, drifting through the grass

Hawks called out, eagles soared, lions claimed their prey

And still this unhindered harmony, this majestic fruitful expanse

Held animals safe and plants unharmed from age to age

But this glorious land served as a bright and shining beacon

Men flocked from near and far to claim the fertile soil

Cattle thundered across the range and ate the grasslands bare

Homesteads sprung up and families settled

Fences enclosed the land

And so the Great Plains became great cities

Which I look out upon

And wonder if, a lifetime ago, this land beneath my home

Was a rolling sea, an endless stretch of golden prairie grass

"But there is beauty here, the beauty of space and of freedom, and the beauty of the wind feeling its way along the brown, grassy swells and ruffling the yellow ridges." ~A. C. Greene (on a plaque at Frontier Texas)