The Prairie and the Flood

These most recent photos that Papa Mersy has sent from the prairie have absolutely blown me away.  When I opened the first photo in my email inbox a few days ago, I really did gasp as the black-eyed Susan slowly loaded on my screen.  

These pictures brought to mind a work of fiction that I recently read in the New Yorker.  Quaestio de Centauris by Primo Levi isn't just the story of the genesis of centaurs, but also of the moment when all of life surged forth on the Earth's surface.  He describes the day after The Great Flood of long ago: 

"When the waters retreated, a deep layer of warm mud covered the earth. Now, this mud, which harbored in its decay all the enzymes from what had perished in the flood, was extraordinarily fertile: as soon as it was touched by the sun, it was covered with shoots from which grasses and plants of every type sprang forth; and, further, its soft, moist bosom was host to the marriages of all the species saved in the ark. It was a time, never to be repeated, of wild, ecstatic fecundity, in which the entire universe felt love, so intensely that it nearly returned to chaos."

Could any words better describe the extraordinary vitality of the prairie?  I hope you enjoy scrolling through these photos and feel the vitality that they capture.  If you'd like to read the rest of the story, you can find it on the New Yorker website.

So much love,
~Mersydotes