Ronald Johnson

But are these landscapes to be imagined
or an actual
Kansas -- the central, earthy, prosaic core of us?

Or is the seen always winged, an eidolon only to us -- &
never
the uncertain capture
of great, golden unembroidered
slabs?

All is Oz.
The dusty cottonwoods, by the creek,
rustle and Emerald City.

And the mystic, immemorial ciy

is rooted in earth.

All is Oz & inextricable,

bound up in the unquenchable flames of double suns.