Thursday, September 08, 2005

Sentry

An arctic-like day in the waning light of mid-January. Light dances off the board level, coal black loam, now blanketed by the slightest layer of windswept snow, just a tracery hint of icy glaze. Asphalt road spine straight, his darkness the only break on this sea of former prairie. This cold, this thing, bites like so many charred hammerhead teeth, piercing my new windtunnel tested coat, its armor no match for these pearly whites.

It is the 21st century, the age of "improvement," yet this landscape calls the settler, still their domain, miles of barren speckled only by the infrequent century old farmhouse, shingles beaten and crumbling from the alternate abuse of a day like today and the scorch that dog days bring. Today is another day when these vestiges of any earlier time stand in defense of my plains, not yet subsumed by notions of what presently passes for progress. This brings a slight smile to my windburned face.

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