let grow more winter fat / wine-cup / western wild rose
so little open prairie left little waves of bluestem little
fuzzy tongue penstemon quieter the golden currant
nodding onion quieter now as well
only a few clusters of Colorado butterfly plant still yawn into the night
where there once was prairie
a few remaining fireflies abstract themselves
over roads and concrete paths
prairie wants to stretch full out again and sigh—
purple prairie clover prairie zinnia
prairie dropseed nodding into solidago
bee balm brushing rabbitbrush—prairie wants prairie wants
prairie wants
Copyright © 2023 by Camille T. Dungy. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 21, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.
“This poem appears in my new book, Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden. As I meditated on why my family and I want to return portions of our yard to a habitat that supports native plants, the words in this poem came to me.”
—Camille T. Dungy
Camille T. Dungy
Camille T. Dungy is the author of several books of poetry including, Trophic Cascade (Wesleyan University Press, 2017). Dungy was a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow and is a University Distinguished Professor at Colorado State University.