prescribed burn

In a few hours the prairie behind our house will catch fire.

It will start small, a single orange tongue. But it will spread quickly, indiscriminately, until the whole field is ablaze. I will sit in my great-grandmother’s rocking chair in the sunroom and drink my coffee black and watch the place I love go up in flames, an erosion of tears on my cheeks. There is wisdom in the process, sure, but there is also horror in destruction. What’s the point of pretending like there’s not? Only after grieving can the earthen hand of wisdom really be trusted.

A prescribed burn, they call it. Even better, a controlled burn. As if such a thing exists. As if one of the four elements of matter could be shaped and molded, contained and coerced; the work of human hands.

I have witnessed a prairie burning before. Last year a different field near our property was blackened to a crisp, and I have been well familiarized with the process, one rooted in indigenous wisdom and meant to mimic the benefits of natural wildfires for native grasses and soil. But this time the flames will run their greedy tongues over my backyard. The dog will sound an alarm. The chickens will flee from the smoky heat.

Before we ever moved to the prairie, I started using the word rewilding to describe my inner life. Hell, I titled a book with it. But now I understand that although perhaps the process had indeed begun, I knew nothing of which I spoke. Some things can only be taught by root and moss, feather and skull. Some things can only be learned by pacing the woods at midnight, or laying down on a log to best hear the tree creak.

The wild is not a gentle teacher — or, perhaps it is so for those who are asking for gentleness. But I, I came in with chin raised and irises flashing, willingness written on a blank check. Daring the wild to have her way.

She must have chuckled when she sent the wolf after me, knowing a woman cannot outrun a wolf. Knowing the choice is to either run with the wolves or be devoured. God licking her fingertips, wondering how this is going to go.

Kate Baer

This Wild God, this Wolf God, this Whatever She is God that I no longer know how to talk about, she started rewilding me long before relocating me to this place, long before I knew I would have to watch it be devoured; her prescribed burn slowly spreading according to plan until every last corner of my life has been consumed.

In a few hours the prairie behind our house will catch fire.

It will start small, a single orange tongue. But it will spread quickly, indiscriminately, until the whole field is ablaze. I will sit in my great-grandmother’s rocking chair in the sunroom and drink my coffee black and watch the place I love go up in flames, an erosion of tears on my cheeks. There is wisdom in the process, sure, but there is also horror in destruction. What’s the point of pretending like there’s not? Only after grieving can the earthen hand of wisdom really be trusted.

last year’s prairie burn