Across Kansas

My family slept those level miles

but like a bell rung deep till dawn

I drove down an aisle of sound,

nothing real but in the bell,

past the town where I was born.

Once you cross a land like that

you own your face more: what the light

struck told a self; every rock

denied all the rest of the world.

We stopped at Sharon Springs and ate—

My state still dark, my dream too long to tell.