Kansas- completed?

Kansas

This land,
it suits me,
gloves my hands in dirt
(soil, earth, loam, terra firma)

shoes my feet,
roots them,
entangles them in a weave
of Timothy, buffalo, blue stem,
bottlebrush, and foxtail millet:
a living body suit.

I grow upon the horizon.
The wind tosses the chaff,
like stalks of my hair.
I morph to the wind.
A machine, giant upon the hills.
Ancient energy for a 21st century.


II

A garden
of wild onion,
earthy tastes,
on a baking summer day.
Cactus hidden in buffalo grass,
snares the bare feet.
Sandburs jab, bring blood to a child's foot.
Devil's claws hook and pin into ragged denim bottoms.
Tumble weeds caught in barbs and fried on electric fences.
All created to keep me here
in mind, in soul, in imagination...


III
In this garden
Adam would have named the flower "sun".
Eve would have reached for a wild plum,
Growing in ditches, hidden spring water.

Walking in that garden
there'd be no live bushes
to hide behind;
just tumbles of weeds
blowing across the grass.

God would call the wind
to sweep the hidden horizon
to unearth
fleeing man and woman...

The snake would rattle with his lies,
and the woman would crush his head
against a rock.
A rock that would stand
never fall,
a limestone wedge planted in the earth.

IV
In the prairie Garden of grasses
God would form man of loam,
Rich in wormy compost.
The breath would be the wind,
held back against the Osage orange
and cottonwood tree.

The rivers, rich brown
with runoff life,
water the grassy fences.
To the East to the West, to the South, to the North-
The Saline, the Smokey, the Solomon:
Trifecta under an angel’s sword.

The snake coils, hidden in the sun of limestone posts.
A rattle in a baby’s hand
(a baby that would smash his head)
V.
From one man’s fall
(tripped on a rock)

came all
puncture vine, goat head, sand burrs
that vexed me as a child.
Fire ants that bite, thistles stuck in fingers,
wasps stinging flesh.

Came another man’s rise:
The sun pinned upon the rolling hills,
Like some bug stuck in a formaldehyde jar
and mounted on a styrofoam tray.

VI.
That killing jar could not keep
Him pinned upon that hill-
No stone left buried in the loam,
could hide His body from the day.
His Word, His Water, His breath,
His body and His blood,
keep me still in prairie grass,
growing stems skyward,
roots trenched in terra firma.
Walking windward on God’s breath.