Highways and Byways: Broken Bow

By Maik Strosahl

This poem was inspired on the road. I like to look up information on the places I deliver. When I got to Broken Bow, Nebraska, I was disappointed that I could not find a backstory for the town name, so I created my own. I tried it several times and finally got it to work in this prose poem.


He wore three feathers – an eagle’s for strength, a falcon’s for speed, a hawk’s for keeping alert and the ability to see how today carries tomorrow in the balance. His hickory bow strained to the pull of sun-bronzed arms ready to war, string taut in his hand, twisted turtle’s neck held the nock of an arrow set for launch and piercing death for the proud white man staring through his looking glass, high in the saddle unaware of the enemy under cover of brush.

And it was those three feathers – the eagle’s, the falcon’s, but mostly the hawk’s – that saw no end to these battles, no end to the blood of his people spilling in meadow grasses, trickling across the terrain to bleed and be washed away with the spring rains and floodwaters.

So he lowered his bow, allowed its tension rest and took a breath before standing, three feathers rising from his cover, stepping forward and raising his arms to show himself to their oblivious captain, stepping into the rush of cold snow melt over a stony bed, calling to the man for peace, an end to this endless warring, taking his bow and breaking it over his knee, throwing it away and opening his arms to the shocked faces before him, pleading for a better way to share all the Mighty One has placed before us.

To those hearing but not listening, his words were the words of an eagles screeching, his pleas were the wailings of a falcon, his empty hands for sure were hiding the hawk’s piercing claws toward those he approached until they stopped him with the lead ball, chased the others who rose to follow his lead until they were stilled amongst the blowing grasses, they were spilled across the prairie floor, and the victors whooped, rode off to find more to silence.

He fell into rushing water, floating off just one of many as they pushed his people from the grasslands, pushed their way until the land reached end, doubling back until all those with feathers bent to their will, gathered to be walked onto scraps of land in the shadows of their empire.

The Great Spirit gently scooped up his river-soaked soul while the Nemaha rushed away the flesh, washed it over flooded banks downstream, finally reaching rest in the wooded bottoms, where years later bones would be found under a tree, marked only by a few leaves and three fallen feathers.

Copyright © 2020 by Maik Strosahl Michael E. Strosahl has focused on poetry for over twenty years, during which time he served a term as President of the Poetry Society of Indiana. He also dabbles in short fiction and may be onto some ideas for a novel. He relocated to Jefferson City, Missouri, in 2018 and currently co-hosts a writers group there. In September 2020, he started the blog “Disturbing the Pond.”