A Mark of Pioneers
by Robert E. Gard
an echo from his book
An Innocence of Prairie

Who were they who came to the Wisconsin land, heroes in their imaginations, crusaders against a primitive innocence of grass and flowers?

They broke open the virgin prairie with oxen and iron plows. They were the iron ringers, shouting, “Iron on iron, rock on rock.” They cried, “Here it is! This land, this valley, this hill, this link of woods is our!” And they named the prairies for far away places - Empire and Arlington, New Glarus and New Lisbon - for star and sun, for Indian myth, for women... yes, and for a joyous heart or a human dream.

There was profound innocence in their joy of doing. They thrust deeply into the warm, virgin womb of earth. Planting, planting, more and more. First with joy then with fury, they tore into the sod that had been so long inviolate. With their oxen and their iron plows carved ribbons of severed roots and turned under the yellow sunflowers, buttercups, lobelias, and blue lead plants. Laid under with them were wild asters, indigos, and star flowers; yes, even the tall grasses. 

And these first corners chanted their hymns of religion and work. And oh, yes, their work was so often their religion, a glorious effort of despoliation and innocence.

Above the severed prairie grew the grains. The uprooted trees burned through the night. The wild land became transformed, and the water birds knew this and no longer nested on the prairie wetlands. Pigeon flocks whose density had hidden the sky disappeared. A victory over innocence had been won, an elemental conflict resolved.

 Innocence is of many times and of many things.

 Those who came to these Wisconsin lands at the beginnings of the great time of change had little sense of the ravaging that was being done. It was not for them to note such things. They desired only freedom and work. They had no thought of being called violators. Their concepts were of labor, home, and the family; their concepts were innocent and innocents they were.

Yet they had such joy in the clear waters flowing through space and time - valley springs and hillside brooks. They discovered, oh so wonderfully, the crystal flood that rushed from the springs over white sand basins and over crisp watercress. And the brooks, bright and clear and flowing so beautifully, were among the many wonderful resources to tap.

We, who now look backward, clearly see the beginning of the time of violation and the way violation expanded with the growing crops which the innocents planted. We shudder to think of all that came after - when the grand passage of the ducks was no longer grand; when the bald eagles soared less and less; when the whooping crane was not seen at all; when, it seems, cruel darkness began in the brain of man. But could it have been another way? This irony of the innocent violating innocents? 

I find that I am increasingly moved by the remnants of prairie that still remain and all the prairie meant to the pioneers. Today’s remaining bits of prairie provoke in me a feeling of wonderment. I well know that they are no longer so worthy of epic imagining. I realize that mostly relic prairies exist today. And where the prairie is being preserved, there are only vestiges of what once grew and rested and grew again in so many places, stretching from horizon to horizon.

I can imagine (almost as though I were there myself) the elation of those pioneers when they encountered the prairies. How tragic it is that the reality of what prairie has vanished and that we can only imagine the expanse of wild tall grasses.

One time in my travels I paused briefly at an old cemetery.  The tall grass was growing only around the edges, but there was enough for me to imagine how it was when the pioneers arrived and the first graves were dug.  All around were now cultivated fields.  This tiny spot seemed like an island, a dream preserved because of the old graves.  As I stood quietly I heard the sound of wind in the grass, then with it or from it, a voice that seemed to speak only to me.

“Look long and good,” the voice said. “I have kept this grass, this old burying ground. This piece, this acre or so, is not of our time; neither yours nor mine. It belongs to itself. The wild grasses, the roots, the fermenting soils - they are the true possessors of this land. Look how the grasses have browned and brittled in the fall, then lay rotting under the snows. Look how the new shoots of the grasses push up in the spring, Out of the rot. Their roots are down in the rot, but the grasses taste sweet and bear a wondrous sound when they mix with the wind.” 

The voice stopped. Fearing that the spell would break, I, too, was silent. Finally the voice continued, “Listen to the wind. Know how it breathes. Let it carry you into August when all across the field the corn leaves are moving against each other. Listen and feel. Feel the wind. Feel the corn leaves against your cheeks. Listen and look. See how the wind sways the sunflowers in the fallow field and how it lightens their yellow with the dust of the earth.”

I listened and felt and saw. It was an intense moment, one I would never forget. The voice could not have come from a dream. It, too, had to be a real and living thing; or was it a memory of pioneers proclaiming their innocence?

Upland Sandpiper