Poems & lyrics celebrating Kansas Flint Hills land & people by Annie Wilson – the “Flint Hills Balladeer”
Big Bluestem: King of the Prairie
Singing praises to our tallest prairie grass The Big Bluestem grows on the prairie's Great Plains.
He can handle the heat and a month without rain.
He blankets the pastures with tall purple stems.
In the warm summer evenings, they dance in the wind.
In the warm days of April his first blades will show,And start drinking in sun to send carbon below.The roots take that energy to make the grass grow, In the cycle of life the Big Bluestem knows.
He's the cattleman's favorite with his bushy green leaves.Those heifers and steers he surely can please.
His roots go down twelve feet, his stems reach up nine.When they burn off the prairie, he grows back just fine.
He has riches of rhizomes and ligules and blades.
And he wears his crown low by the soil for shade.
A turkey foot serves as his scepter so high, To carry his seeds for the next summertime.
His roots are a factory 'neath the ground of the plain.
They build up the soil and drink up the rain.
Those roots grip the ground in the flood & the storm, And hold the grass up to the sunshine so warm.
He's the King of the Prairie; he's the tallest of all.
He's green in the summer and red in the fall.
He grows high on the ridge & in meadows supreme.
The cows and the calves love his kingdom of green.
Hear this song for free at: tallgrassexpress.com/big-bluestem-king-of-the-prairie. Contact Annie: tallgrassexpress.com/contact
