michaelafinch

When fear grows in me,

When freedom slips and liberty falls,

My mind takes me away, takes me far into the Plains,

north of the Platte, across the Missouri and into the deep,

fast as the winds could take me, past, into the way back.

Rushed and with foreboding all consuming,

pushed forward into hills of time, given over to time, before,

long before this moment of tragedy takes me

into the Dakotas and badlands, wheat high,

winds strong and true, when the breath of free men and liberty

flowed through our bodies strong.

At last, settled into an age long past, into those fields I go

to a small grove of spruce trees, wrapped around the creeks bend

shaded and shielded by a small rise, tall prairie grass,

soft meadow of brook run, given way to a weathered and solid cabin

south faced for that slimmer summer sun,

a flank of trees protective from winters blast of wind and fury.

To that grove and small plot I go, to rest in the shade,

smell the oceans of grasslands, feel the air of freedom and smile

of a memory that allowed me to exist in this moment.

This moment of a nation, a people that lived free,

lived in liberty so unique, so true, so brief.

Praise be to God for all of it, even if fleeting, fading and gone,

It was, in our time, glorious.