Richard Smith

Flatlands

The country is too flat, nothing higher than a prairie dog’s mound. These are mountain people from the north. You can feel and see the disappointment surging through each of them, their dejected stance as they view the constant flatness of the land as far as they can see. Tears slip down the elders’ cheeks as they find no mountains here, no ragged peaks and valleys across beautiful gray hard granite with sparkles of blue-green when the sun flares on layers of lichen, a dusty crust when dry but dangerously slippery when wet. Nothing but flat, flat land for as far as you can see.

Richard Smith