For you it might be the most boring six hour drive of your life.

Just flat land

And gas stations

And people you would be weary of if this were the city.

But it’s not the city.

That’s why it's boring for you.

In those miles of farmland reaching out from here to the horizon

You see only plowed, dry, withering cornrows

Next to rusted once-silver silos

And you don’t feel a thing.

I think the magic of the flat land only chooses a certain few,

Those whose souls live buried deep in the midwest ground

Below the frozen snow,

Below the fertile soil.

One glance out the car window

And my heart is stretching across the land

Reaching into every crack and hollow in the earth

Allowing my being to go free into the night.

The one word that always comes to mind is

Desolation.

It seems too sad to fit such a beautiful landscape,

But maybe this is why the land only speaks to some.

To those whose bodies do not fit their spirits

To those who need a quiet place to rest

Where there are only farms for miles

And you can finally feel. 

You feel what you have been harboring

All the previous years spent numb

And somehow the biting, unforgiving Illinois wind

Restores life and warmth somewhere deep inside.

So look again, and don’t only look for what your eyes can see

And finally let those pains out

The land will take them

And do with them what she pleases.

And In doing so,

She will heal you- I promise.

This is the place you come from.

This expanse of miles is the only home you have left.

The land might seem unforgiving

But she will take care of you better than any city

Or mountain range

Or ocean view could.

Yes, here you will come face to face with

All the emotions this land has the power to bring up.

In them you will see yourself reflected across the earth

And discover that this is where you truly belong.