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

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“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