Todd Robinson

Nebraska

Sandhill Cranes with Setting Sun by Taraxacum Wikicomm

I meditate from your far margin, more pretension in your corn
than you let on. On the homesteads, cottonwoods forever. Milo
beans used to grow, and before that, something older for us not
to know. I confess I miss Valentine , where the little dipper poured
glory over coyote dens and shelterbelts and the Keya Paha blood
warm. When God still bore down to my pit sweet and green, fever
broken with prayer or flood with drought,

                  a back with labor.
.                    .                    Nebraska, your funeral
                  ham, your star party.

 

About the writer:
Todd Robinson’s poems have recently appeared in North American Review, I-70 Review, A Dozen Nothing, Sugar House Review, and Cortland Review. His debut collection, Mass for Shut-Ins, was published by Backwaters Press in 2018. He teaches in the Writer’s Workshop at the University of Nebraska-Omaha.

Image: Sandhill Cranes with Setting Sun by Taraxacum Wikicomm. Wildlife and nature image from Wiki Science Competition in the United States. 2019.  By free license.