Effigy

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Prairie, Effigy Mounds National Monument, Iowa: photo by U.S. National Park Service, 2005

"I" likes imagining things as assuming shapes as remote as possible from the shapes of things as they are, for instance
the clouds moving like great caravels in formation across the pale sky
like great wagons across the prairie,
but "I" can't see the sky,
to "I" the prairie is no more than a dream landscape across which is etched
this via dolorosa of an individual life
"I" may in fact never have had any more to do with
than a spectator who comes upon the scene of an accident just after the bleeding
victims have been taken away, and wonders why
"I"
is required to appear in this picture at all
when instead "I" could be imagining something completely different, for instance,
walking the Konza Prairie trail in fall
under a pale blue sky the size of Kansas
as a virtual effigy

A Konza Prairie trail in fall: photo by WaltBren, 2009



Along the Konza Prairie trail in fall, bridge crossing Kings Creek: photo by WaltBren, 2009