by David A. Lee
The wind begins its low confession
across the buffalo grass,
carrying syllables my mother said
belonged to the first fires.
I follow the road beyond the church,
its windows cracked like memory,
past the bones of the trading post
where stories once leaned on the walls.
Coyotes braid laughter through the cottonwoods,
each cry a question:
what have you done with the old songs?
I keep walking.
I have no language for absence.
The moon, wide as forgiveness,
unfolds her palm over the prairie.
She teaches me to see what’s gone,
to listen as dust remembers names.
At the dry creek bed I kneel,
press my hands into the cold earth.
The stones vibrate like drumbeats
just beneath the skin of the world.
It sounds like a heart
refusing to die.
© 2026 David A. Lee All rights reserved.
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One can hear the movement of the wind in his words. Beautiful.
Solid work. Well done.