Love Story

The kitchen door opens onto dirt and the second half of the country all the way to the Pacific. Rusted prairie trains out of the tall weeds elbow the last century aside, rumble from every direction towards Chicago. My great-grandfather, who would be 150 years old today, put on his one tall hat and took the big trip to Omaha for my great-grandma with the family ring on his vest and winter wheat lying wait in seed. He gave her all the miles he had and she gave him the future I walk around in every day. The mountains were too far west to count so they doubled back over the land and century and the real weather kept coming from them.