Saturday morning glory

That it comes everyday is enough to keep us in bed. If dawn were to be anything more than a flash in the pan--what it is--we'd really take it for granted, I'm sure. But nothing in the human experience is as glorious as dawn. It fills the sky.

And for a few quick moments, its opportunities are endless as the metaphoe it is.

The song dawn sings is heavenly, and all about light, none better than first. It's just shocking to see northwest Iowa in caramel--worse, butterscotch. 

It's September, and even though the temps and humidity were still August dreadful, demise is already written into the landscape. The trees can sense what's coming, although the brush of color here is mostly just the rising sun.  Still, you can't help but read it here.

Something about this I really liked--the triumph of the morning glories.

And this--a whole park of "false sunflowers," who wait until summer's end to take over the open spaces. like the partiers they are.  Tall and spindly, the slightest breeze sets them to dancing. I came up over a hill on a dirt road and found myself suddenly at what people used to call a sock hop, massive too.

A million party-goers, not wary in the least, the whole bunch boogeying, anyone of them quite stunning really especially when caught, like this one, against a shadowy background.

Or this, a sunflower wedding--left to right, flower girl, bride, and groom at nuptials.

Once, undoubtedly, someone lived here, on a slope of the Little Sioux River. I'm guessing the ground wasn't worth much, first to flood in spring and first to dry out in summer. But the well was great, I bet.  It's all history now.

And it's all state land, or mostly. Thoreau, like Tea-Partiers, used to claim that government best that governs least. I don't care what they say, I'm glad this section of what once was tall-grass prairie isn't neatly carpeted with more unending row crops. I'm glad the state owns it, and I can wander.

Saturday morning, 'twas a joy to look around and read the State of the Union address written into rolling hay fields in an otherwise empty Little Sioux river valley. 

"It's not what you look at that matters," Thoreau also said, "it's what you see."