Crickets and weeds cooked dry
In the great dirt skillet
Of the Colorado Plateau –
Record heat crackling
Across to the Panhandle.
In 1942, men of my family
Put down ranching
And took to the sky,
Their tillers trained on Tokyo.
First settlers in covered wagons.
First Lieutenants in flight squadrons.
The Dust Bowl had left
A hard piece of scrabble,
Not enough topsoil
To hold any roots.
The ground grumbling,
Angry, stampedes of B27’s
From Pueblo Field –
Beasts of the earth
Transformed by speed,
Heat and wings rise
Shimmering from the land.
Maybe from the air
Flashes of feldspar
Were a beacon
From the bare rock atop Pikes Peak –
That original, distant promise
Soaring up from the prairie.
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