Kansas by George Hartley

for Valerie

There would be no Rocky Mountains without Kansas With its rolling hint of incline sloping westward, A statement from the land that, standing still, you're still in motion.

Kansas anticipates rivers winding down so Mississippi, Serpentine striations carving history, a stony carving notion, a measured in-between from Estes to St. Louis.

Kansas captures land in locomotion, the thrusting heave of nation learning levelling in transition suspended geographic animation.

Land and sky, rock and water, wagon ruts mark distant broken arrows blue heron mind of limestone generation.