Seven Sensations of the Prairie

These seven chapters are inspired by the chapters of creation in Genesis 1.

One

Perhaps you have come 

to hear a word from the wind

to be gathered and set free

to remember that in the beginning

every single thing was good. 

Darkness and light are still

making room, playing with 

bright dawn and golden hour, 

an eternity of shadows and shades 

all relatives of this very moment. 

Breathe the prairie into your body,

full and fierce so it chases the depths 

of your lungs with the truth 

about everything ancient and new:

Beauty begins in the darkness.

Two

Linger here. Stay long enough 

to turn in slow and sacred circles.

Drink the whole circumference 

of a horizon still stretching beyond 

acres farmed and fallow and free.

Look up and find a prism painted, 

changing like mood stone, 

a wide lens projection to witness

grace and wrath and other mysteries 

that cannot be captured or kept.

It is an embarrassment of riches. 

Be still and be expanded by 

the vaulted ceiling skies overhead, 

the dome opened and offering: 

Heaven comes all the way down. 

Three

When you listen for the seasons, 

every step upon the earth is a prayer.

Mud squishes and grass swishes. 

Leaves crinkle and snow crunches. 

These are the very first psalms. 

Recite a parable about fruit and seed, 

land and caretaker, grain and harvest. 

It does not need to be verbatim 

to be true and faithful, for it to recognize  

your own movement within this piece. 

Plant your feet on this sacred ground 

and imagine roots are growing

into the layers of earth, like marrow 

that knows and keeps and calls you: 

Beloved, to dust you shall return.

Four

It’s easy to lose ourselves 

in urgency of our own making, 

in the rush of a world that demands 

more and faster, routines created 

to serve whole seasons to the hustle.

It’s easy to lose ourselves 

to loneliness and languishing, 

apathy’s shrug dulling the wonder

for why we are alive here and now

and whether it matters at all.  

It’s easy to lose ourselves 

to ourselves, or we can get lost 

to cosmic light that set out to find us 

a million years ago, stars that know:

We are also being found. 

Five

The days of creation are wise, 

making homes and carving belonging 

before critters and creatures show up 

in search of sky and tree, nest and perch, 

fresh water for layers of life to flourish.

Listen for the lament of a meadowlark 

and a sparrow’s stubborn song. Get your 

eyewitness news from a burrowing owl 

and gossip with flurries of pheasants 

who hover in between earth and sky.

Watch bright rivers and streams for 

the flicker of fish who have been here 

since their waterways were carved 

by glaciers that migrated and melted: 

Be moved by creatures who know.

Six 

Remember your ancestors, 

everyone made in God’s image,

and everything that happened 

so that you could come into creation, 

for a time and place such as this.

The oldest divine directives are 

good care and loving attention, 

to notice the sacred in the wild, 

to tend the living, generations 

here and now, already and not yet.

Sheep and the bison remember

how much has been invested 

in our potential to honor what is good, 

to hold all things lightly and trust:  

There is more than enough.

Seven

Perhaps you have come 

to shift from a pace of proving, 

to slow your breath and be renewed, 

to feast at the table and be held in song, 

to remember God’s dream for Shalom.

There is a stillness waiting 

beneath what you have planned, 

resting below your best laid plans 

already resisting the pressure to produce 

ready to disrupt your doing in favor of 

God’s delight for who you are.

May you know rest beyond measure.

May you know rest beyond measure.

May you know rest beyond measure 

that gives you back to the beginning: 

You honor God by simply being. 

Permissions and Use: These poems are written by Meta Herrick Carlson. They were commissioned by Shalom Hill Farm in Windom, Minnesota as part of the Prairie Spirituality Project, 2023. They are posted on the prairie trails there as a resource for movement and reflection. (Since I retain rights to these poems, you are welcome to use them in your context, too. Just credit me in print using this language.)