dual personalities

I made it back from the prairie–it was a windy (as usual) drive, but uneventful. The sky was big and blue.

I stopped once to stretch my legs and change the radio station–in Coalfield, south of Springfield–the Tiger Lilies were abundant!

…The clouds

Sweep over with their shadows, and, beneath,

The surface rolls and fluctuates to the eye;

Dark hollows seem to glide along and chase

The sunny ridges. Breezes of the South!

Who toss the golden and the flame-like flowers,

And pass the prairie-hawk that, poised on high,

Flaps his broad wings, yet moves not—ye have played

Among the palms of Mexico and vines

Of Texas, and have crisped the limpid brooks

That from the fountains of Sonora glide

Into the calm Pacific—have ye fanned

A nobler or a lovelier scene than this?

Man hath no power in all this glorious work:

The hand that built the firmament hath heaved

And smoothed these verdant swells, and sown their slopes

With herbage, planted them with island groves,

And hedged them round with forests.

–from “The Prairies” by William Cullen Bryant–read the whole poem here.