had to have been

By Jeff M


the path was but an eye
laid out in the enriched grass
and between the flowers
lovers standing still
or sitting down

we walked there mostly had to have
but not so much as i think about it now
miles away and years removed from us
the rocks God dropped that afternoon we were
in
love

through the holes in his pockets.

The Charlie Parker Festival, Kansas City, Missouri

By Jeff M

The Flint Hills of Kansas

By Jeff M

"The villages and small towns of America are not dwindling and disappearing because their values are no longer meaningful, but because they no longer work economically, no longer provide the level of services and amenities that most of us demand. No dramatic violence is being done to rural America. It is withering away because it has little function in modern life."

Robert B. Biley, "New Mexico Villages in a Future Landscape" (1969), as cited in PrairyErth by William Least Heat-Moon.

*

"Prairies let us out...They aid to grow a roomy life."

William A. Quayle, The Prairie and the Sea (1905)

*

We now come to the end of what I began 20 days ago: a brief pictorial journey into an endless place. I'm looking forward to going out next year, but something tells me I'll journey further north --- to Manhattan, Kansas, to the Konza Prairie Preserve. Who knows. Perhaps I'll take an airplane and see and enjoy the expanse from the sky, much like the pilot in the above picture must have felt when he flew over the Red House Pasture.

A woman I found on the internet has a campground near the Konza.

"It's primitive," she said, "and you have to bring your own water. But the ground is soft in places. You can get a stake into it."

There's nothing special in those words, nothing symbolic or grand, but I like the sound of them.

The Flint Hills of Kansas

By Jeff M

Hobbling on my bad ankle, I took the bus out to Big Pasture and took these shots. The hike from the main barn to the scenic overlook is about 3.5 miles one way, or 7 miles round trip. My ankle couldn't take it. Nevertheless, I wanted to go and went, enduring the bounce and jaw-jaw-jaw of the guide. He had some interesting things to say, but I would have preferred to walk and experience the land and its silence alone. The scenic overlook affords visitors sweeping vistas of the land. Approximately 13,000 acres of prairie, touched only by bison and pioneer and the several tribes of Indian (certainly Kansa tribes) that passed through and hunted atop this ancient place. A good place to lie down and let the life pass out of you.

The Flint Hills of Kansas

By Jeff M

Near the bottom land of Lower Fox Creek. A few minutes before I snapped this photo, I had a confrontation with a barbed wire fence. The fence won, and I sprained my ankle pretty badly.

The Flint Hills of Kansas

By Jeff M

The Lower Fox Creek, the critical artery of the prairie's bottom land near Spring Hill Ranch. It is here where much of the prairie's wildlife can be seen, including wild turkey, fox, coyote, as well as deer. I found two wild turkey feathers along a path here. When I walked, a galaxy of grasshoppers took wing, snapping left and right into the high and low grasses. I would eventually venture into the deep undergrowth and follow the creek, where I saw ducks gliding along the green water, escaping the heat of the day.

The Flint Hills of Kansas

By Jeff M

The following day, I decided to hang a right off Kansas 177 and follow U.S. 50, due west. While I would eventually find my way to Diamond Creek Road (and the unpaved road that would inevitably shake up my steering alignment), I found this old stone bridge first. It was closed to both vehicle and foot traffic, but what the hell; I simply stopped my car and crossed over it, wondering why the surface of the bridge was covered in rich soil. On the other side, from where I snapped this photograph, a large field stretched out. Across the street was a fully operational guest ranch, specializing in letting outsiders spend a week to see what ranchin' is all about. Maybe next year.

The Flint Hills of Kansas

By Jeff M

The musicians perform in front of the Emma Chase Cafe, Cottonwood Falls, Kansas.

The Flint Hills of Kansas

by Jeff M

They come from all points of Chase County to hear the musicians: Diamond Creek, Council Grove, Cedar Point, Cassoday, Strong City. They flip open their lawn chairs and set them on Main Street, facing the icy clean windows of Emma Chase Cafe. The musicians --- ranchers, teachers, students, mothers, fathers, children --- stand as straight as rakes and play guitars, banjos, fiddles, basses, pulling from their instruments a medley of sounds, from old country to new country to gospel to blue grass. A great time, and one you can depend on every Friday night at 7:30 p.m.

The Flint Hills of Kansas

By Jeff M

After I wrestled my way out of the tall grasses, I stood and took this photograph, one of my favorites from my visit into the Red House Pasture. Perhaps it is the way in which living specimens, like this black walnut tree, grow alone in the immensity that attracts me so much. There is determination here and a striking display of destiny, as if this belongs here and no where else on earth.

Later that night I would visit the town of Cottonwood Falls, home of one of the oldest functioning courthouses in Kansas. It may even be the oldest. I would also discover what puts the "folk" in folks, the magic in chicken fried steak, the beauty of water served in mason jars and an assembly of musicians who get together each Friday night to play music on Main Street.

The Flint Hills of Kansas

By Jeff M

The Red House Pasture, Chase County, Kansas

The Flint Hills of Kansas

By Jeff M

Photos taken from my sojourn into the Red House Pasture. Walking along the creek bed was a unique experience; the limestone was as smooth as ice, cracked by erosion, dry as bone. Later that night a strong storm would push across eastern Kansas, and I wonder how much of that water was retained in the creeks, within the infrequent watering holes. The bottom picture is a manufactured pond meant for cattle.

The Flint Hills of Kansas

by Jeff M

Jumping off the official path, I crossed over into the Red House Pasture. This is where the land, like the trusting lover, reveals itself. Soon the ground broke open and the limestone emerged, like spots on a leopard. I was pleased to discover that the National Park Service, accompanied by many other organizations, plan to reintroduce a herd of bison into this pasture in the next few years.

The Flint Hills of Kansas

by Jeff M

Leaving the Spring Hill Ranch and its barn behind me, I head westward into the emerging hills. I think of the Flint Hills, and the prairie in general, as an almost human shape in the disguise of physical geography. These are not hills so much as they are the human body itself --- naked, with its valleys, its crevices, its mounds, its hidden moisture, its skin the grasses. Shadows are rare except beneath the black walnut trees. When clouds move across the sky during a strong wind, like the palm of a lover's hand searching for a place to touch, the shapes of their shadows are easily traced and followed.

The above picture shows the road leading out of the West Traps Pasture. Once you reach that point where the road disappears at its crest, so does civilization. The horizon is smooth and sharp, like the demarcation line on a map. Like vanilla crashing into chocolate ice cream. The bottom picture shows that not all civilization is absent; the National Park Service bus tour approaches, with its belching motor, its talkative guide, its interior aisles crowded with walkers and purses and backpacks.

The Flint Hills of Kansas

By Jeff M

I'm hoping someone can identify this plant. They crowded the trail on my return trip to the Spring Hill Ranch.