Fingers reach across the prairie,
Touching one another, gentle at times,
Forcefully at others, as rivers sing.
Their names are prairie songs.
Cimarron, Smoky Hill, Kansas,
Wakarusa, Republican, Arkansas,
Saline, Neosho, Missouri, Platte,
Both north and south. Songs
Tying rivers to prairie grasses,
Short and tall, flint and limestone
Laced together. Rivers sing
To one another in undetermined places.
They seek comfort in cottonwood,
Strength in numbers, a chorus,
Silent as a frog in stone, a fish
Caught before the sea subsided.