Irene

On the wide sweep of empty prairie land, where the wind blows silence into the deepest recesses of the soul and the cloud shadows sail like clipper ships across the sagebrush-dotted hills, a goddess lives whose name is Irene. Irene is tall and silver haired. She wears gingham skirts, jeans with suspenders, long sleeved blouses, hiking boots. She walks about in dry washes and across the crests of hills, on mysterious errands that involve plant bits and staring down prairie dog holes. Her long hair wisps free from the tie at the back of her neck. In her footsteps little green shoots spring up.

Irene is the bunched spring and fall to earth of antelope running. She is the deer's TV-antenna ears and the sharp bark of the fox. She is the placid amble of buffalo, the sparkle of light on frosted grass, the sudden splash of black-eyed Susan in the midst of grey-green sage in July. Above all she is the cry of coyotes at sunset: "I-r-eee-ne," they say, back and forth, calling each other in many voices. "I-r-eee-ne, Ireee-nnnne, yip, yip, Ireee-ee-ne."

Why is this manifestation of God the one to whom they sing? Her name means peace. She holds the intricate weave of life-giving-life and life-giving-death that is the ever-changing surface of the prairie. She watches the entire dance out of her copper blue eyes, sometimes tapping her foot in rhythm. She is the high wail of strong wind. She is the silence behind every burst of meadowlark song. She carols joy at all matings and tranquility at all endings. She loves each tiny seed and awkward newborn, every old bull lazing in the sun. Sooner or later she is the last refuge of all of us. She is our welcome home.

If you have not been to the prairie to sing to Irene with the coyotes, you must go soon. Her silence will shake the tension out of your sinews even as her wind plays an other-worldly music in your bones. She will pry your fingers off the things you care most about and give you a vision of your place in the cosmos. She will cradle you with the rare certainty that your name is known forever. And whether you return or not from your walk out into the waterless places, the strange song of the coyotes will heal you: Irene. Peace. Irene.