THE PLAINS BROOD ALONE
by

Birney Dibble

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I've driven those roads on the ridges and watched the sun fighting the clouds
With its gold-yellow-orange-white switches that make the dark sky cry aloud.
And I've looked at the storm clouds a-rolling with lightning that shimmers and streaks
Down valleys that never have endings, up mountains that zoom to the peaks.
I've stood on the jagged escarpments where silently earth meets the sky
And satisfied many a longing and answered many a "Why?"

The Plains of Wembére are open: I've seen them in all of their moods,
The antelope sleek in his wildness, the lioness roaming for food.
I've stood on a ten-foot-high-anthill that shone with a coppery red
While the graceful impala stood frozen with a spiraling crown on his head.
And far 'cross the vastness that stuns you, throwing dust in the blistering sky,
Flies a thundering huddle of zebras with a noise like a storm rushing by.


During six months of dryness you wonder if life can ever return
To grasses and bushes and rivers, to flower, to thorn tree, to fern.
The swamps are like endless dry deserts, the waterfowl long since have gone.
The water holes lie cracked and empty, the game herds have all wandered on.
Then gradually the thunderheads gather, increasingly closer each day,
And finally the skies break asunder and finally the clouds have their way.
Now rivulets run into rivers and rivers run on toward the sea.
The life-giving water is boundless and life for the living is free.




I've wondered what manner of power could resurrect life from the sod
And I've come to the final conclusion that somehow there must be a God.
How else could all this have meaning, why else should the plains brood alone?
How else could the rivers run rampant and cause mountains to shudder and moan?
The manner of man's own undoing has seldom if ever been clear,
For does he not stand in the cyclone and fly to the moon without fear?
He's learned how to harness the atom and transmit his voice through the air,
Yet somehow he's failed to remember the God-given power of prayer.
The whole of mankind should have access to the world that the Turus behold
As they stand on the Plains of Wembére while the wonders of God's world unfold.

Then the manner of man's own undoing would suddenly seem well-defined:
He has bridled the freedom of nature and hemmed in its free-ranging mind
With high-rising walls of white concrete, restrictions on body and soul.
He feeds well the fires of ferment, holds fast to a wandering goal.
But let Man look out on the long plains -- they'll welcome him back with a sigh.
Yes, the Plains of Wembére are open: let Man see them clear ere he die.