We tend to define the plains by what is absent, checking maps to find how far we have to drive before we get to something—to mountains in the West or cities in the East. What, after all, are we to make of wheat fields, one-horse towns, and sky?

Mystery in this landscape is a certainty, an eloquent one. There is everywhere silence—a silence in thunder, in wind, in the call of doves, even a silence in the closing of a pickup door. If you are crossing the plains, leave the interstate and find a back road on which to walk; listen.

—R.A., 1978