I am lying on my back under the sun, under the sky.

I am lying on the snow, suspended above the soil, above the prairie I burned last fall.

The flames of fall reduced the grass we think of as prairie to ash, reduced the grass we think of as prairie to the air I am now lying in.

Underground there is still a massive tangle of roots, woven together by mycorrhizal structures.

I can feel the transformation of spring through the sun on my face, through the snow on my back.

The snow insulates the prairie from the seasonal shift; I suspect the roots feel nothing yet.

I wonder if the air feels the emptiness of the space, if the air misses curling around the silicon-laced stalks of big bluestem and gliding over the petals of the gentian, if the air misses flitting through the styles of the prairie smoke.

I wonder if the air around the unburned autumn prairie was more dense than the open air I now lie in.

I wonder if the barred owls, chattering and hooting night and day now, are calling the prairie roots awake through the snow.