Southern Plains

Inside are the computers, the social networks, the DVDs. Outside are the cicadas, or maybe they’re just crickets. I don’t know. I only know that outside at night with the breathless heat of the day washed away by rain, the insects light up the yard like miniature Chinese lanterns and the damp deck boards feel like home beneath my bare feet.

Overhead, the stars and planets illuminate the neon-sick sky with brilliance not to be found in technology. The trees rustle like I always read they did in the novels of the dead. There is no “modern”; there is only now, which reaches from history into a time that I – a woman without grandchildren – can’t conceive.

How can I feel sad or alone on a night like this? The voice of the past comes whispering across the plains and asks me questions that I, today, am infinitely and singularly prepared to answer.