Paynes Prairie, Florida,
is fenced off from the highway
by wood and wire.
A short pier and viewing dock
will hold you over the deep, heaving grass.
I should have hiked the prairie
west of my home, the small college town
peeking out from the East.
They say you go mad in the grasses.
I want to leave the car running by the road.
– Eric Dutton
Summer in Kansas is why,
despite the legislature,
despite the Board of Education,
and the specter of God in politics,
there is space for the atheist.
Argument by design; the perfect
balance of day and night, the fine
cocktail of oxygen and carbon dioxide,
the unaided perfection of the eye—
it all falls apart in August
when the sun, the moist smothering
atmosphere, and the burning winds
all stand forth against the lives
of every worshiper and every
blasphemer to show us this world
was not made for us, and we
are not so well made for this world,
and the only defense against this creation
is a tiny air conditioner of
decidedly un-divine design.
– Eric Dutton
I’ve done all of the big things in Kansas: I was born there, educated there, married and divorced there. I became a father there. I say “there” because I live in Florida now, but Kansas will always be a “here” for me.
