Artwork © Luis Lázaro Tijerina

 

The Flint HillS

“See, they return, and bring us with them”.
From “Little Gidding,” T.S. E liot

The prairie grass now brown as April sweeps up
gusts of wind and rock,
Here I have found my end,
My little death upon the air of where I was born,
and now to prepare before dusk comes,
for every exploration comes to an end,
in this moment,
Here, among the Bluestem Pastures,
in this time among bison roaming here as if nothing
was difficult but to exist,
I have watched them in my memory moving
like battle tanks in ragged robes,
amid the fire.

A cold wind upon the tourist’s path towards
the hills of time and existence without end,
One only has to step forth on the BlueStem Hills,
Here among the Great Plains,
Where the controlled burns will come in springtime,
The ranchers not knowing their time
will soon pass and they will be nothing but memory,
But it is these other people who will endure:
Soon enough Pawnee, Wichita, Osage, and Kansa
will set their feet upon the footpaths…
They step quickly into what was cold March—
to see their great shadows upon the ancient rocks,
Flint from stone, stone to flint—
the singing poems from stone to death.
Come to me, life,
What can I fear except this disquieting existence?

Limestone and shale, with their endless fossils,
prehistoric sea creatures eye me with shadows
of blindness among the tallgrass prairies.
For here among the Flint Hills,
Nothing is to be pitied in the fragile existence,
For all which is born must come to a finality among
the stars— this difficulty in the universe which is always
with us,
For fire, earth, water and air is in all of us,
In the stillness here among the Flint Hills.
There is only the certainty of living at this moment,
Knowing full well that tragedy is the commonality
in youth and old age,
At this very moment among the prairie grass,
Ashes to ashes in the wind singing its endless lament.

 

Luis Lázaro Tijerina was born in Salina, Kansas. Mr. Tijerina has a Master of Art degree in history, concentration being military history and diplomacy. He is a published author of military theory, short stories, essays and poetry. Mr. Tijerina resides in Vermont.