'This Plain land is theirs'
This Plain land is theirs, never yours or mine.
The wind rules over it, scours and mixes,
Picks at towns’ edges until, peeled up
Like patches, atomized, lost even to God.
Most packed off quickly for balmy cities,
And return to pity the poor relations,
Who stuck it out, who stayed for a girl, who
Required burnt summers and fulsome space.
Should we have ever lingered here in houses?
Homes that couldn’t be dragged on litters
By royal indigents who tracked the sun,
Who wore their god’s feathers in dreamtime?
This land is its own. We pray on vainly
And patch windows against the driven dust.
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