My Prairie Eden

Mark and I spent the morning on the prairie outside of the Nature Center at Pioneers Park. It is an old land, ever changing and always enchanting.

It also is one of my favorite places in the world, hands down. Even if I were to travel to the far corners of the earth, this would remain my sacred place.

You cannot walk its trails without feeling the history of this place. It undulates, this virgin prairie, having never known plow or foundation. It knows only the constant cycles of nature--wind, rain, snow, drought.

We are shushed by an orange-and-black cicada, impossibly big, looking more like a B2 bomber than an insect that can fly. He reminds us that we are in his place, traveling through only because he allows it.

Mark flushes a young snake from its grassy hiding place as we make our way to the water's edge. Everywhere, crickets and birds chirp and chortle, sending secret messages or lovelorn songs into the wind. Along a tree line, we startle a deer from its grazing spot, and we watch its shadowy outline move through the trees, listening to the dried limbs crunch under its hooves.

This is the place I want to be when I am no more. Scatter my ashes to the winds and let me fall among the goldenrod, hitching a ride upon their swaying greens. Let me cling to the wing of a bluebird as it sits atop its wooden home. I would be eternally content to sit upon the gentle slopes, watching snapping turtles and raccoons vie for a sunny spot on the bank of the creek.

I can still feel the warmth of that place against my skin. I take a handful and put it in my pocket for another day.