30 years mountain meet sky

"Millions of Americans have long had a fascination with our solar system. One of the early Americans who became infatuated with the heavens was Professor Thaddeus S.C. Lowe. Lowe, who is best remembered for his Civil War exploits, creating the Nation's first military air force. He sold his "Balloon Corps" idea to President Abraham Lincoln, and made a number of successful balloon flights over northern Virginia, observing Confederate lines for the Union Army.
Lowe's own memoirs tell how he "would lie in a field or sit astride a picket fence, gazing for hours at the great white clouds hanging like banners or floating slowly across the skies." These observations would one day help him in his ballooning and aerial navigation. Lowe stated "from living in high altitudes, I had observed that there are often very different air currents in the valleys from those which exist in the upper atmosphere." What Lowe was observing were the jet streams that moved the clouds across the skies." (Paul Rippens)

lie in the field shaking, this train, this conversation with god, making the most of the moment, wondering about that edge of fear, those rivulets of sweat down my neck and back, 4 years old in south dakota field, behind the house, laying low and elevated somehow at once, my crewcut shining with heat, breaking a blade of grass to chew, no toys, only my own 2 hands, songs forming on my lips, songs of praise, of play, of discovery, of disclosure, who knows who in this quiet place, my grandmother and grandfathers breath all around, an itchy leg, squinting because the sun is so bright, the red earth staining my corduroy pants, a poem, a weaving of ideas into a blanket of comfort, the smell of rain coming across the prairie from the east.