Chris O’Carroll

Santa Fe Trail, Kansas

The Conestoga wagon wheels that rolled
Through here more than a century ago
Left scars still visible, so I’ve been told,
Ruts I might make out if I squint just so.
Peering at prairie grass, I fail to find
The tracks laid down when history passed this way.
What if those marks are figments (like that line
In Casablanca Bogart doesn’t say),
Ghost imprints on collective memory,
Where folklore’s legend-laden wagon train
Detours or shortcuts past reality
While an imagined soundtrack plays again?
    Yet a nearby ground-nesting meadowlark,
    Unseen, is trilling notes that bid me mark.