Spring

The Flint Hills have been burning this week, an ancient rite of spring passage that brings new life to the prairie each year.

No matter how long we live here, I am always surprised and confused when it begins. I smelled smoke when I went out front to retrieve the Sunday paper. It wasn’t until later when I saw the haze surrounding the entire town from our back porch, and remembered the blood red sunset of the night before that I put two and two together.

There is beauty in the burn. The lines of fire can be seen for miles. When I was in college, a friend and I would park on a hill on the west side of Emporia and watch the fires from a distance, a view is now obstructed by a housing development. I remember once we drove out into the hills, over the gravel roads, trying to locate a particular fire. It seems we drove almost fifty miles without success. Darkness and old country roads can alter your perception of distances.

The smoke from the burn can create stinging eyes and breathing problems, but it also delivers some of the most glorious sunsets on the planet, a phenomenon that was noted after the explosion of Krakatoa in 1883. For almost three years after that massive explosion, glorious sunsets were observed in much of the western hemisphere. We’re fortunate to have beautiful sunsets year round in this part of Kansas, but they are really magnificent once the burning starts.

The Prairie Fire Festival will be held this week in Cottonwood Falls. We are going to attend the Blue Grass Gospel concert with some friends on Friday night. I suppose we all celebrate the arrival of spring in some fashion and would like to imagine that the lightning strikes that caused the prairie to burn centuries ago sparked a new creativity in the Indians who once called these plains their home.