Words

The Nature Conservancy calls the tallgrass prairie a more threatened ecosystem than the Amazon rainforest.

What words will we use to describe this once vibrant landscape to our grandchildren—vanished, extinct, restored?

Compass plant, spiderwort, big blue stem,
Disappearing words.
Botanical names float in the air
like strands of music.
Vast stretches of grasslands,
now
remnants, fragments, traces.
Tallgrass prairie
more threatened than the rainforest.
Vanished? Extinct?
Restored say our grandchildren.