The Prairie

THE PRAIRIE

       
     National parks were created for wilderness. I saw wilderness once, maybe twice. The Eastern Woodlands. The Western Prairie. Brought to human bondage. The coastal penoplain lost its wild Virginia rose, green snake, half its mammals, and prehistoric people. The bald eagle died and came back. The osprey died and came back. There is clear evidence of rejuvenation. Shale and coal have been taken from Appalachia. There are some horrible scars and even the earth burns.  Some people who love art and nature paint landscapes of Pennsylvania. In Ohio clay is turned into art pottery. There is a connection. Hand blown glass is formed in South Jersey out of quartz and ash.
       Not noticing any of this, three people having breakfast in a chain restaurant talked of hunting mushrooms. Displaced farm people, they had been captured by the force fields of the urban black hole and now had two sticks to rub together, certainly enough  to buy breakfast with the hard charging denizens of Earth City.  Their combined age could have been 180 years. A close inspection of the dirt on their boots and shoes would reveal that the soils were recently brought to the surface through excavation. They had been in the restaurant before. One  waitresses knew  them by name, Bob, Flo, Jimmy. Discussion about the weather was concluded with general agreement as to its particular warmth for springtime. A number of mushrooms had been found. One was very agreeable when eaten. Had Bob said it was red? He looked straightforward when he spoke, not at the friends at his side. They had counter seats.
       Outside, a late April sun was beginning to warm a field separating industrial parks. The grass seemed a variety of wheat grown just as any farmer might grow. Along the edge of the parking lot where their car was parked a disturbed piece of land had promoted the growth of thistle plants. They were tall, green, and taking over. The rains of spring had made it so. Getting into the car all three had the same flash of memory as they observed these plants. It was many years ago. Fields and livestock. Hard work. Family members. They were children playing and the wild flowers grew everywhere. The daydream ended for each with the old "where are they now feeling" which ended quickly enough for they were content having eaten a pleasant breakfast shared with friends and laced with talk of mushroom hunting.
       They drove to the cemetery. It was a small burial ground, started when the prairie was first being cleared. Its place in the sun was flat and higher then all the surrounding landscape. They had been picking dead branches off an azalea planted at the head of Flo's mother's grave when Bob asked to all if there was a reason why the cemetery was so much higher then the rest of the  place. Jimmy said he didn't remember it as having been so much on a hill when he was young.
    "Well, sure not," said Flo. "The plowing all around it took it all away. Just blew it up in the wind, you know." She had not lifted her head nor broke her concentration on some tulips.
     "It just so might be," thought Bob.
     They attended to the graves of other relatives and friends. The morning passed and when they got back into the car they all felt refreshed. It was good to be alive, but it had also been good to be among the old times even though it needed to be recalled, even though it was no longer a part of their lives.
        Back home, Bob paused to talk with his across the hall neighbor.  "It's all gone, you know ."
      "What is," said his neighbor.
      "Why the prairie of course. Blew it away, just like that.  I saw it all today up at the 
     cemetery."
     "Saw what?"
     "All them plowing. Going on for years. It was blown away, no harm meant, but it was 
     gone just like that and probably nobody knowing it was happening."
     "Oh. Sure. You know everything."
     "No, not everything. Just that you and I won't be around forever. Stop by later and I'll 
     show you pictures."
     As the door to his apartment closed behind him Bob was feeling a small sense of loss for times when he was young spent closer to nature. He turned to think of his neighbor. The man had never seen the prairie.

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