Poetry in FOCUS/midwest
Springfield, Illinois
Springfield, Illinois
has no Altgeld,
no Vachel Lindsay,
no Stevenson.
Springfield, Illinois
has gone to sleep
under a milktoast sky
near Masters’ sweet Sangamon,
and Lincoln’s brave New Salem.
Only cicadas,
high-strung in elm trees,
reach for the sun
in this torpid town;
and their brief joy
is a sad joy.
Springfield, Illinois
is a fickle lover,
forgotten.
No more clear-eyed men
come around any more.
And her prairie songs
have new words.
– David Pearson Etter, FOCUS/Midwest, October 1962
