my languish in land of plenty

unlike my daughter running and floating

in air like a lark in the meadow

far, far from the corrupting cities

i drive through the rolling hills

taking also note of the abandoned

abundant agricultural machinery scattered

beside deteriorating log houses of the prairie

a space i exchanged for shores of the oceans

and at the end of the hot summer with rain

enough to keep me cool but no grassland

for me to graze, unlike the lavish cows

lewd horses, and lazy lamas, i ponder

but with no Pysanka, the talismanic power

of the Ukrainians nor the dream-catchers

of the first nation to transform

my misfortunes into a land of harvest

or that Albertan store house of gasoline

with a steady pumping of slow moving pumps

while i languish with hunger and a loss

of direction in this land of plentiful plenty

© henry victor     01.09.2003