The Times They Are a Turnin’
In western Kansas, a storm’s soon brewing
A wall cloud is forming, a tempest stewing
Perhaps a tornado will turn up today
To vacuum the land of dust and hay
Turning and churning, mincing and thrashing
Punishes the ground with a severe lashing
This twisting tormenter scours the earth
But the Greensburg of new it gives birth
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A bounty of beauty on the fertile Kansas plain
Supplied by the sunflower maidens of grain
Faces of flaxen seed wrapped in yellow bonnets
For the artist a palette, the poet a sonnet
A large round head sits on a slender neck
Extended green arms keep balance in check
Although they appear to have no motion
They ripple like waves across an ocean
All pivot in unison as if they are one
Craning their necks to follow the sun
Turn to the left, then turn to the right
To absorb the beams from dawn till night
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Though we may appear to be standing in place
We are being hurtled helpless through space
The earth on its axle turns us on its way
We travel twenty five thousand miles a day
Mere passengers on a pendulum are all we are
Turning the same circle round our closest star
Our celestial clock chimes at three sixty five
The calendar a chariot in which we arrive
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A farm burial plot, in reverence I slow
All dressed in black with heads bowed low
Time to turn over the reins of the family plow
From parents to children, it’s your turn now
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In western Kansas the landscape has changed
Hilltops of windmills now orderly arranged
Pillars of progress these turbine towers
Harvesting the energy of natures power
New pastures of blue with skies to plow
To inherit the wind, it’s your turn now
