Heartland

The lungs of the country stir with the whirring of windmills. Rainy roads glisten with the setting sun. Dusk settles like dust on the prairie.

Spurting through the muddy tracks, my messy tires slide into the campground. A half moon lights the dusky sky. Fireflies scatter between the trees. Grasshoppers spring staccato from the switchgrass. Soil glows as vermilion as a summer sunset.

On my humble stove, rice, beans, a shiny jalapeno. I eat on a damp bench, my nostrils steam with the chile's Mexican heat. For so long I have clung to other cultures, Mexican, South African, Israeli, Canadian, English, clinging to anything that made me feel more significant than the estranging America around me.

I sip black tea. I smoke my cigar. Animals call in the night, darkness surrounds my small tent, and I relax. I am home in my camp. In my America.