Travels with Prairie

“I could not know it for sure then, but somehow I felt it, understood that this country was in my bones already and would remain so.” –Gary Holthaus

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Once the tallgrass prairie is part of you, it remains in your memory wherever you go.

As I travel through Sicily this week, all around me are natural wonders. The arid mountains…

…the sky and sea.

 

Yet, even as I appreciate and enjoy Italy, the Sicilian landscape reminds me of the tallgrass prairie back home.

The dragonflies of Sicily are all new to me, like this broad scarlet.

I see it, and think of the American rubyspot. Is it is flying low over the prairie creeks and streams?

The flowers of Sicily are blindingly colorful.
Hibiscus…

Bougainvillea.

 

Yet, I remember the prairie bunch flower that was blooming when I left on my travels. Almost colorless, but still compelling. Is it finished blooming? I wonder.

The scarce swallowtail in Sicily…

…causes me to become nostalgic for the monarchs of Illinois.

The grasses, so different in Italy…

…yet evocative of the bottle brush grasses of the prairie savanna.

At sunset in Sicily….

… I think of the tallgrass prairie. Wherever I go, no matter how beautiful….

…the tallgrass prairie is my landscape of home.

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Gary Holthaus is the author of Wide Skies (1997) from which this quote is taken. He lives in Minnesota.

All photos copyright Cindy Crosby. Because of limited internet in rural Sicily, locations and ID will be added at a later date.