There are few things like a sunrise on the prairie.

I returned to my ancestral home this weekend for a short visit. A twenty-six hour visit to be exact. We arrived late one night, stayed a day, and left at 6:30 in the morning – just as the eastern sky began to glow a gentle band of purple along the horizon.

And I was reminded how much I miss early mornings on the prairie.

The first views were the early colors seeping into the sky and the sharp, dark silhouettes…

Round shapes of haybales lined up for feed.
Unseen roosters crowing up a storm.
A sky-reaching grain elevator.
A tractor.
A pump-jack.
The stark outlines of winter tree branches along each mile road.
The cross on an old country church.

Then more color crept from the sky into the landscape.

Old windmills towering above silver-frost covered grasses.
Glistening pasture ponds reflecting perfectly the grasses and trees.
Whispy clouds accented with pink-hued edges.

And then, almost imperceptibly at first, life becomes visible.

A slowly waking farmstead with early morning chorers.
Two dirt-covered oil field trucks idling next to each other at a pump-jack as the men compare notes.
Roadkill.
Cows contently chewing their cud.
Crisp, thin layer of ice over the puddles in the ditch.
A schoolbus collecting its morning load.
A small-town water tower marking nearing civilization.
A dog out for a morning romp – solo.

The ability to see forever as you come over a rise – the plains, prairies, buttes, waterways, and canyons stretched out before you as far as you can possibly see.

Wide open spaces.

And finally, the early glimpse of a sliver of red-orange sun peeking its way above the horizon, blinding us as we drive east, reflecting off the sides of the oil tanks, and casting its golden glow in very vivid rays along the pasture floors.

There are few things like sunrise on the prairie.

Written during an early morning drive, going through rural Kansas in January 2017.