The people are a story
that never ends,
a river that inds and falls
and gleams erect in many dawns,
lost in deep gulleys,
it turns to dust,
rushes in the spring freshet,
emerges to the sea.
The people are a story
that is a long incessant coming alive
from the earth in better wheat,
Percherons, babies and engines,
persistent and inevitable.
The people always know
that some of the grain will be good,
some of the crop ill be saved,
some will return and bear
the strength of the kernel,
that from the bloodiest year
some survive to outfox the frost.
--Meridel LeSueur, from North Star Country (1945)