the forgetting

the wild plains got lost under the franchiseable American Dream

greed paved the land and spread the patented seed

where once the mighty buffalo roamed

and now the flash and glare of digital billboards and neon signs

screams out “buy now” against a sky

where gazillions of stars are silently shining…invisible to the naked eye

serpent shaped mound blanketed in the green of freshly mowed grass

ripples a mystery through time

and names like Chicopee, Ithaca, Topeka and Kiowa

whiz by me in reflective white on green signs

whispering of the peoples who once lived and died on this soil

who knows of these people and what they yearned for?

i wonder what made them laugh and cry

and how many times they watched the winter come and go…

and i wonder how the Earth and Stars sang before even those ones came to be

the forgetting swallows all things

and as I cruise along the dusk peppered highway

i see pieces and parts of rusty trucks from decades past protruding

from the carnivorous hillside and i realize with some relief…

that, in time, all this will be forgotten too.