The landscape is one hill folding into another, bodies of hills lying together. There are few trees for shade. We make our own shadows here, unless a cloud runs interference with the sun.

As a hawk glides overhead, we feel the rhythms of land and sky. And somewhere out here, we step into that space between questions and answers, a place where we are satisfied with the unknown.

After darkness comes, the wind settles down, and the Milky Way flings itself across the sky. A rumor of coyotes hangs in the night air.

When the world closes up shop, when the sky turns from blue to black for the very last time, when the last poem is written and read, this is where I want to be – out in my beloved Flint Hills.

– excerpt from “At Home in the Flint Hills,” Waiting on the Sky by Cheryl Unruh  ©2013