A Short History of the Prairies

The prairies are known for wheat fields and industry ~ no foolish flowers 

or graceful stands of trees 

especially for my grandparents and pioneers arriving on a flat, open plain, 

only wanting land, but somehow 

trees, flowers, and vegetables 

sprouted and grew 

with the patience of farming families and 

the longing for green growing things and bright colourful flowers

While the fields were quilted 

in green wheat, blue flax and yellow canola

it was not like the abundant gardens of home 

so gardens with potatoes, onions and carrots were planted

even if precious water had to be sacrificed to keep them alive

there was only waving grasslands and sky burning bright blue 

or gray with clouds if luck brought rain with a crack of thunder

the only relief, the night fall that erased the vast emptiness of the prairie

Now the descendants of my grandparents and pioneers

keep planting - not just fields of waving grains - but

graceful trees, foolish flowers and vegetables of many kinds.

“After the sunset on the prairie, there are only the stars.”

~ Carl Sandburg