Here's what I wrote about Iowa:
"6/19/2011 -- I've never been to Iowa before. It's like driving through a diorama -- I feel like I am driving a little toy car through a patchwork of corn and grass -- the seams of each field stitched together by rows of trees. Tiny farm houses dot the landscape and clouds hang from above, suspended like puffs of cotton. I think if I look hard enough, I will see the filament from which they've been strung." I later wondered about the size of a pair of hands that might have wrought this.
I am always surprised that, in spite of the name, the Great Plains are far from flat. They undulate for hundreds of miles -- miles where the mind is free to roam over the hills and wonder.
I could not possibly drive through Iowa without playing this song over and over in my mind. As I write this, it continues to roll. Here is what Dar has to say about "Iowa":
"...this came out of a vocal exercise ... and then I put the words to it after driving through Iowa and finding the landscape was so rolling and beautiful, like a vocal exercise." (I could not love her more -- and try as I might, this video will not embed. Please click the link below to view Ms. Williams perform for a group of middle schoolers.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajKW3X9WtPE&feature=related
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