The wind knows
the rustle of the oak boughs,
the susurrus of the prairie grass,
the fragrance of the wildflowers,
the stillness at the edge of the lagoon.

The wind knows
the trilling of the warblers flitting through the tallgrass,
this flat and endless expanse of verdant, sun-bathed flora,
this kingdom of wide-open spaces, the big empty,
these geographies that define us, within and without.