Setting Sail on a Sea of Grass

The forests are ablaze at the end of October;

The stained glass of trees

Melts into the last smoldering embers of color.

The prairie becomes a vast sea of grass:

waves and waves and waves of grass

you long to throw yourself into it; feel the seed spray

even as you wonder over the last green and gold leaves; like anemones in the liquid air; sprouted from the prairie floor

You know this green will crumble into what is inevitable

Change

A transition we can accept with grace, or rebel against it

We set a brave face against the coming cold

and yet, we forget

what we are given is gold.

The wind blows, whipping up whitecaps from horizon to horizon

the froth of a hundred thousand prairie flowers gone to seed

that crest and foam against

those few rocky islands, which float through the grasses

and even as the turn of seasons brings a kind of melancholy

we bravely set sail for what we can’t yet see

but believe is there, just over the horizon line.

All photos by Cindy Crosby (top to bottom):  First sixteen photos from The Morton Arboretum and its Schulenberg Prairie, Lisle, IL; road through the sumac, Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL; island of trees on the prairie, Franklin Creek Grist Mill prairie, Franklin Grove, IL;  barn and boat, just outside Ashton, IL.