This Woman, One of Earth's Greatest Grand Mothers.

This woman,

one of Earth's

greatest Grandmother's

Behind the sepia tones

in the rectangles above

that formed the shadow, and light 

so long ago projected,

into an image of yesteryear heroes,

lies the visage of one of 

earth's greatest Grandmothers.

She was a duster, a truster

a cusser and a bustler,

a rock buster, and a luster

for the good life, on her own land.

Alas she wound up under a cluster

of weathered stones marking

the last stop in her pil"grim"age west

with emphasis on the word grim.

Long past the bone jarring Conestoga,

and the back breaking raising of a home, 

and the flesh rending

expulsion of six babies, and

two miscarriages, and then the

small pox that marked a large hole

in some early settlers loves, and lives.

Leaving only this 

humble photo of one 

who I know sleeps somewhere

unheralded and forgotten

in the prairie dust
~
In that prairie dust

lie the remnants of this woman,

just one of many prairie women 

who struggled and fought, 

all the odds only to become 

the same dust of which she tried 

so hard to scratch out a living from.

Sweeping it from 

the rough wooden floors 

of her homespun cabin, 

and cooking it's gifts, 

from the labors of her tilling 

all those fresh vegetables, 

that stubbornly yielded barely enough 

to wipe the hungry looks 

from her children's faces.

This toil hardened face 

that saw so much, 

and found so little 

in the way of dreams 

being fulfilled, 

now sleeps peacefully 

in a crumbling pine box, 

her dust mingling with the land 

she tried so desperately to tame,

her soul in the arms of God's care now,

and her flesh a part of the land

she grew to love to hate.