Dakota is a people, it is a place, I know that

well enough. It is also a state of mind in which

I often reside. Dakota is part of the packet

of questions I ask myself each night as I fall asleep.

Dakota is the answer to one of those questions,

though an answer that leads only to another question.

The windswept beauty of the Dakotas, its prairies

and aridity, is like and unlike the roiling waves

of my Dakota, they share something, an uncertainty,

a distance, it's difficult to see, difficult

to imagine, even in vague terms, these similarities

and distinctions—Dakota is, is as close as I can come.

Dakota speaks in rhymes and riddles, in tales, 

in suggestions. Oblique is her architecture.

She assumes you know, and if you do not, then

you do not need to know, you will not know.

If you do know, you become one with her, drawn in.

It is a good place to be, if only for a bit.

It is not easy being Dakota, it is not easy to be

in her sphere. A bit is not enough, but it must be,

it takes all of her, nearly all of her, to be her.

She spares what she can, be grateful for that, and go on.

Live with what she offers, give what you can—

hope for more, if not in the light of day, then in dream.