The very first time I stopped at Spirit Mound, just north of Vermillion, SD (see the Dakota Dome on the horizon, an inch or so from the top right border of the shot) cattle were grazing where I'm standing right here, up on top. Years ago, cattle owned the place. I can't imagine people didn't occasionally climb to the top anyway; while it may not be as challenging as Pike's Peak, it creates, so high above the prairie floor, a similar desire: we want to see what we can see if we get way up there atop of things.
Scale is sometimes hard to get in the flat world of a photograph, but if you look closely, you can see the trail cut thoughtfully through the prairie grass, a massive recovery effort. It snakes through the flatland, and if you look very closely on the right side of the shot, you'll see a party of seven or eight people, who happen to be leaving, on their way to the parking lot, in front of the closest battery of trees.
Speaking of snakes, Barbara had to be reminded that the two of us have never seen one, even though the sign. . .
. . .is more than a little handy with its introductions.
For much of my life, Calvinist compunctions kept me from taking Sabbath afternoons off of communal worship. Since retirement, the compunctions have lost their sting, although I still measure my Sunday behavior by the old ruler. I've come to believe our yesterday's sweet pilgrimage out South Dakota "counts," as we used to say. The day was gorgeous, all around us, harvest in full swing. No matter if the fields are full or empty, they were, yesterday, nothing but gold. And always, from the top of the mound it just seems you can see forever. Something about that big, wide view strikes me verifiably "religious."
Down here beneath, renewing the prairie requires the patience of Job. The flatland beneath the peak is starting to look more like grassland, but it's taken years and years to tease back some semblance of its coat. For thousands of years no farmers poured anything onto the soil. Spirit Mound is an entire section of prairie, but bringing back what was takes time and effort.
Of course, you can't bring back Lewis and Clark, and the few men who braved August heat to see what the Native people told them were little 18" devils up top (or so the story goes). Funny, I don't think about Lewis and Clark walking that trail up the hill or leaving again, without capturing a little 18" devil and stuffing it for President Jefferson.
What I see our there is the very first herd of buffalo. L and C had seen a single buffalo the day before, but when they were here in 1804, what they laid their eyes upon from the top of the mound was a couple hundred great American bison. Took their breath away. Made them forget the stiff August heat. I'll bet they couldn't take their eyes off them.
Sadly, they're long gone now. Once, they ruled out here. Once, they went where they wanted, when they wanted.
When we're up on Spirit Mound, we're an hour from home, at best. I think it's a blessing to think of the Yanktons and the Omahas and the Otes and the Poncas all doing their thing out here once upon a time. And I like knowing that long ago a bunch of white men, in uniform even, marched up Spirit Mound in search of little Devils.
But what pulls me back to Spirit Mound time after time is the idea that for thousands of years, not all that far from home, whole herds of buffalo roamed, like the song says, coming through these very grasses. See 'em in the background here?
These guys called it home.
Makes me smile.
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