March 7, 2004 ... written on a solitary road trip from the mid-south to Fargo: a thousand miles of change. Formerly posted as Northern Illinois, now revised, expanded.

Chasing a relentless highway up from the rolling south
I find the grace of shape and form
has dwindled to the bare necessities
in the outwash planes of Northern Illinois.

Dwellings dirt-gray, stately cubes sprouted
from the blank windswept ground
some the sightless white of a snow-blind sky,
or faded brick invisible
amidst a stand of pine and burnished cedar scrub.

Ahead only a patch-of-blue to rest a hopeful eye
and soon I think this is not so unlike home
where the rate of change is measured by glacial degrees.

Tires droning lull my senses
into a state of bleak expectancy
until suddenly sprouting
out of the great shadow of the northern forests
standing staunch and mighty
against a swarm of drumlins*:
a magnificent wind-farm just outside Paw Paw.

*Drumlins are long, smooth, canoe-shaped hills
usually found in swarms. :)
Ain't geography poetical.