A prairie's horizon is at the edge of eyesight. In twilight, the shadows of a falling night cast a denim haze over the flats, that are expansive as an ocean in depth and in breadth. Odd wedges of land, whittled by water and wind sawtooth the sky. Beginning with steady and regular deposition of silt and river sediment, time is laid down flat and neat like ruled notepaper primed for a geologists' annotations. This is old and uncomplicated land, and the only way to survive here is to conform to its enduring rhythm...

- Mary Heebner © 2000/ excerpt from Badlands National Park Essay,
The Western Horizon (Abrams)

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