An essay written for the 125th anniversary of the Prairie Club of which I was member. .

On the Occasion of the One-Hundred & Twentieth-Fifth Anniversary of the Prairie Club (April 24, 2015)

by: Charles (Chuck) P. Keegan

Poetry radiates from the prairie like those undulating patterns of heat that shimmer over the prairie on a hot, sunny, summer day.  Poetry lies within the blades of prairie grass as secure as the leafy nest of Iowa's own multihued American goldfinch. But, most of all, poetry of prairie connection stem from the poetic lines of the Leviathans of such prairie poetry.  Walt Whitman, with his "Leaves of Grass" captures the prairie imagination of each of us through those active leaves that are as timeless as the earth itself and as graceful as the very pristine ideal of beauty.

The ineffable is uttered by the voice of a child resident in Whitman's poem when naively:

"A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands, How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he."

Stop this day and night with me, and you shall possess the origin of all poems;
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun—(there are millions of suns left;)

The child's unanswerable question needs to be asked and rejoiced in as it probes the mystery of our existence that is so deeply and openly experienced on this---our fertile prairie.

Another great, Carl Sandburg, in his poem, "Prairie," shares words that are emblematic of life lived on the prairie.  "I WAS born on the prairie and the milk of its wheat, the red of its clover, the eyes of its women, gave me a song and a slogan."

Those of us who had the good fortune to hear the February presentation know it chronicled the change to Iowa's solid earth over time from long ago until now. It was a cautionary tale since it warned of intrusions imposed by the instruments of modernity and the irreversibility of those intrusions. Sandburg's poetic lines are reminiscent of that early native time--

           

"Here the water went down, the icebergs slid with gravel, the gaps and the valleys hissed, and the black loam came, and the yellow sandy loam."

The conclusion of that paper could have included Whitman's poetic words of stewardship:

January's presentation featured the flight and plight of a living thing of concrete, but delicate, beauty--the Monarch butterfly.  Again, a cautionary tale!  This butterfly, itself the very essence of the process of transformation is imperiled by the caustic forces of so-called technological progress. Even the symbiotic relationship between the Monarch butterfly and the humble milkweed plant is threatened by these forces.

The concerns voiced in these papers plead for harmony and balance among all living things on the prairie.  The paradigm of "Dominion and control over," must be replaced by the paradigm of "being together with harmoniously."  These papers build on the Prairie Club tradition of responsive concern for our prairie.  Each member of our club does not stand alone, but she or he, like Whitman, can shout, “I am large, I contain multitudes" the multitudes from 125 wonderful years past, the multitudes of the next 25 years, and the multitudes of time unending. These multitudes have the power to effect change.

It is a fool's errand to gaze twenty-five years hence and prophesy what our Prairie Club sisters and brothers may consider as they prepare for the celebration of the one-hundred and fifty-year anniversary of the Prairie Club.  Augury aside, there will be no Ariadne to guide us with her delicate thread to bridge the labyrinth time imposes.  But as we pay homage to the members, the multitudes, of one-hundred and twenty-five years, may they pay homage to the members, the multitudes, of one-hundred and fifty years and so preserve the tradition of what the Prairie Club represents.  May this tradition include poetry that will inspire members to continue to seek the Truth.  A Truth, that will preserve the Prairie in all its fecundity for all its inhabitants.