Small Windows Letting Us In

What was it that initially clued you into caring about the natural world as an extension of yourself?

What upswell of curiosity, what flash of beauty, what small illuminated window let you into this new way of seeing? Was it the magic of a seed’s growth, or the winking of constellations, or something else uniquely your own?

We all have our windows that initiate us into this journey of connecting to the Earth; even those for whom transformation seems unlikely.

Curiosity, a powerful force, can transform even the most oblivious minds.

How can we invite others to find their own windows into the natural world?

In spirit of this query, we felt called to share a timely poem, “Imagine” by HC Palmer from The Flint Hills: Artistic Impressions of a Tallgrass Prairie. To learn more about the allure of the Flint Hills of Kansas, explore this Places Journal article that dives into the story of these rolling prairies so quintessential to the American landscape.

“Imagine” by HC Palmer

Imagine, someone finding Herefords and sycamores unnatural and uninteresting. One who lives inside caves of tall buildings, who wears dark glasses against the sunlight. Here, out of curiosity or even despair, he considers a creek bed for the first time, uneasy that shadows are diffused in timber and tall grass and unaware he has walked over a trail of wheel ruts and through the bowl of an old buffalo wallow. The spare tops of hills, set level by the bed of a Permian sea, appear the barest edges of a desolate landscape.

So you go to him, walk him through the prairie grass into the timber, to the edge of Little Cedar Creek. You name plants he hurried by— sideoats gramma grass, snow-on-the-mountain and Jerusalem artichoke. You take him to an outcropping cut on the bank of a dry oxbow. You search through a trail of flint washed clean by spring rains. He removes the glasses to look for himself and discovers a Munkers Creek point. You tell him it is his to keep— a gift. You tell him if he stays after dark, he can see clearly the constellation Pleiades, thinking he has no idea—

then you are pleased when he asks if he can see the Big Dipper too.

HC Palmer

Flint Hills, Kansas

June 2006