Jerusalem Upon the Plain

Barbara A Meier

The radiancy is of wheatfields
fed to the craw of a John Deere combine.
The green against the gold
honeyed fields and milky blue skies.
The hills outside my car window roll westward,
flattening to shorn stubbled fields
and shaggy carpets of bluestem, buffalo, and switchgrass.
The tedium of our wheels on Interstate 70-
Sylvan Grove, Ellsworth, Russell, Victoria,Riga, Ellis, Hays.
My eyes sink, fade to my cheek, resting against the hot glass:

I contemplate ….
What bliss can be found in the plainness of the high prairie?
What pastures of the sick shine with a glorious sheen?

The halls of Zion in the basement of Hadley hospital
where martyrs sleep in hospital beds,
and sticky peanut butter girls behind urine green bathroom stalls
belt angelsongs- funneling through heating ducts
conjubilant with song
a feast to shout among the ailing throng.
It is: A blessed country sweet in death, a home to the elect.
Our song of triumph resounds
‘round floors, ‘neath beds, through IVs,
in comas, and last breaths.
It is: Jerusalem upon the Plains-
a throne of golden wheat, and milk and honeyed earth,
The conquerors, faithfully brought to rest upon the Armo plains.
Blood of earth and heaven pumping through our veins.
We are little girls clothed in robes of white.

 

image by Harry Rajchgot, 2016, Montreal, Quebec