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SANDHILLS SAVIOR

A Poem by Baxter Black, DVM 

In the sandhills of Nebraska stands a monument of wills 

Where man has staked his claim to them blowin’, rollin’ hills 

Where the buffalo once scattered in the bunch grass, belly deep, 

A whiteface calf, contented, sucks his mama, half asleep. 

But you cannot know the beauty or appreciate the past 

Unless you know the reason cows could stay and man could last. 

For humankind is greedy and the babies need to eat 

So to the rancher-farmer fell the task of growin’ meat. 

The fertile black dirt farmland runnin’ up and down the Platte 

Got covered up with people, their driveways and their cat 

And them that lived in cities saw no use for sandhills land 

So the cattlemen and cowboys come up north to try their hand. 

They treated her with reverence and learned what Indians knew 

That it cannot take abusin’ ‘cause she’s fragile through and through 

And they learned a crucial factor to keep them cows alive 

Takes more than snow and sunlight, it takes water to survive. 

So they dug their dainty windmills and pumped life outta the ground 

It allowed the cows to flourish so the people stayed around 

Then little townships prospered and, you can see by now, 

They’ve built a whole existence upon the humble cow. 

From Thedford to Hyannis, from Valentine to Rose 

Across that sandy country where the prairie grass still grows 

You’ll see those man-made daisies, silhouettes against the sky 

Their steel petals gleaming on their stalks eighteen feet high. 

On Nebraska highway twenty or state road eighty-three 

There’s a million creakin’ windmills standin’ proud for you to see. 

They represent a people and the land they’re livin’ in 

The lifeblood of the sandhills spinnin’ freely in the wind.