Silence of the Prairie

Vast, not a large word but it seems to fit the best. Enormous, immense, colossal, imply mass. Vast has a sound that leaves space for the emptiness.

Flat. You might say gently undulating but you’d feel a sense of doubt. A few small farms but mostly the emptiness is relieved by scattered stands of trees. The mind tries to turn them into hills to ease the monotony of it. Here and there a field in corn stubble. Most are bare, dull, brown.

Some places you feel that the sky is hidden from you, by the place, by the hills, the trees, the buildings. Here it’s like being at sea; the eye is disappointed, unable to reach far enough to take it in. I've seen skies that seemed to be broken by the clouds. Not so this day, dark and light the grays seem melded together, one solid, yes, solid it seems, the texture, the form.

The silence also seems to go on forever. Standing here the wind has only me to break it. I turn my ear to just the right angle to get the sound and then I turn away.