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Thursday, February 21, 2013

Homesteads

Spring winds curled dry dead leaves around a lonely wooden fencepost. Perched on top was a medium-sized bird with yellow legs, yellow front feathers, and white near his eyes. “You SEE, I’m such a pretty bird,” sang the happy Meadowlark. His distinct melodic phrases charmed the spring air and rode with spring winds over brown grass that knitted together to hold the soil and formed deep timeless roots underneath.
Nearby, the female Meadowlark, her colors genetically drab to match the grass and hide from predatory eyes, played her senses and trusted their song to scan the surrounding area. Somewhere near was the perfect spot for their nest. A place protected from persistent winds but warmed by the welcome sun where she would pluck long stems of brown prairie grass then weave them together to form a tiny amphitheater. In that bowl, she would lay three precious eggs. Of her eggs, two might hatch and maybe one of her young would survive to ride on prairie winds. By instinct, she knew this would be her last brood, yet, all hope grew.
“You SEE, I’m such a pretty bird.” His song mixed with the wind and the sound of the waving grass to form a prairie symphony.
Out of sight but not out of sound from her mate, she held onto a fencepost, which angled in the lee just off the brow of a low hill and was once part of a grand fence line born from hardship, labor, and love. The fence had belonged to a pioneer family farm that in this same spring, passed forever from them, a spirit, a family, a farm, and a fence gone, yet always home to generations within the steady passage of time.
“SEE, I am such a pretty bird.” He sent his song to her on the wind, lifted his wings, and in one seamless motion rode into the endless puffy-white-cloud sky.

2 comments:

  1. I wrote this for my dear friend Kyla.

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  2. I can just picture the field, somewhere in the spacious Bitterroots! Very nice.

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