Curve

I catch the scenery peripherally
My concentration on I57
as I drive south from Chicago
alone through Illinois farmland
still brown with winter
this early in the spring
I know what I would see, though
The vast flat prairie,
as magnificent a part of creation
As any mountain vista
Or dramatic coastline
But there’s a place
Just south of Kankakee
Where the road curves slightly west
And lays out before me
The boundless sweep of the glacier-scoured landscape