Exerpts from "If You're Not From the Prairie" by David Bouchard Canadian Poet

If you're not from the prairie, you don't know the sun, you can't know the sun.
Diamonds that bounce off crisp winter snow
Warm waters in dugouts and lakes that we know
The sun is our friend from when we were young
A child of the prairie is part of the sun
If you're not from the prairie you don't know the sun.
.......................

If you're not from the prairie you don't know what's flat, you've never seen flat
When travellers pass through across our great plain
They all view our home they all say the same
"It's simple and flat!" They've not learned to see
The particular beauty that's now part of me
If you're not from the prairie you don't know what's flat.
.......................

So you're not from the prairie and yet you know snow you think you know snow?
Blizzards bring danger as legends have told
In deep drifts we roughhouse, ignoring the cold
At times we look out at great seas of white
So bright is the sun that we squeeze our eyes tight
If you're not from the prairie you don't know snow.
........................

If you're not from the prairie you can't know my soul
You don't know our blizzards, you've not fought our cold
You can't know my mind, nor even my heart
Unless deep within you, there's somehow a part
A part of these things that I've said that I know
The wind, sky and earth, the storms and the snow
Best say you have - and then we'll be one
For we will have shared that same blazing sun.

David Bouchard