Nebraska Panhandle

A friend upon a page described to me the prickly prairie roses growing wild along the sandy slopes of gullies, pink delicately striped with scarlet, heavy with fragrance, great splotches of pale light in the dusk. Now that I've found and walked among them in hard-to-get-to, risky slants of washes (Nebraska land, Nebraska sky and air), the prairie roses know I am a seeker, and share their secret: how to brace beauty; how to hold the light.