This is the 13th post of a blog by Matt Porubsky called “satisfactual,” which will be updated weekly, discussing odds and ends about Topeka history and culture, with a little opinion thrown in for good measure.

There was nothing but rain the whole drive. Rain from Topeka to Strong City. I would almost say that Tom Averill, Writer in Residence at Washburn University, and I were pelted and nearly blistered with rain on our drive to Bazaar, Kansas, this year’s home to the 5th annual Symphony in the Flint Hills(SITFH). In the midst of one of the deluges, I got a text mail from the SITFH which stated “It’s a great day for the Symphony in the Flint Hills. Gates open at 1. See you soon!” Needless to say, we were a bit worried. Passing Strong City and entering Cottonwood Falls, the clouds parted and as we turned onto the dirt road, taking us out into the middle of the Flint Hills, dust clouded behind us. The darker clouds had passed. All we saw were overcast skies over miles of rolling hills. Then we saw the tents: huge, white sails in the middle of the wild.

Tom and I were volunteers in the media tent. Our job was to talk to whoever wanted to talk to us and get information to writers and photographers from local newspapers to international magazines. It is an easy price to pay to be able to be in attendance at the event, and I am not afraid to admit that Tom and I have the gift of gab. We filled our roles well with glad hands and quick comments.

All I had ever heard about the SITFH was the actual concert. I had no idea that the event was a lot more like a festival than just a concert. Not only had this group of organizers and artists granted you access to one of the most beautiful places on the planet, but they had educated folks by the dozens there to help you gain a full experience of what the Flint Hills truly are.

When you aren’t being nearly suffocated by breathless admiration of the actual place that you are surrounded by, you can happen to spy from the sly of your eye cowboys on horseback riding along ridges of the hills. This is their home, but they couldn’t be more welcoming to an outsider. The romance of cowboys has been sung in songs and poetry and written about in countless novels and seen in a huge amount of television and film, but when you see them as they are, in their home, romance isn’t the word. The word becomes the vision that is seen. An instant of truth where the only thing that can be said is, “Man, that’s something.” Thankfully, they have people there who can put it into words.  Two of the four “History and Heritage” educational tents were devoted to the ranching and cowboy lifestyles. There were presentations on  “Railroads and Ranching” and “Texas-to-Kansas Cattle Trails” and “Some Cowboys are Girls.” The presenters were folks who could talk the talk and walk the walk. I was glad I didn’t wear my cowboy hat and I shared that with Tom. He said simply, “They would have smelled the phony on you.”

Occasionally, you would notice the wildflowers at your feet and see that where the grass isn’t well trampled it still rises high. These subjects were highlighted in the “Prairie Walks and Interpretation.” These are the walks that take you into the places you have only seen through car windows. The journeys into these gullies answer the questions of the Flint Hills’ mysterious beauty, from flower and grass, rock and weed, and bird and bull. The outsider is incorporated into these ancient sea beds blossoming fully to smell the sound of wind and feel the flowers’ scents climbing to the gray clouds.

The sun slipped from the clouds the moment that Tom and I had found the “History and Heritage” tent that was home to the poetry readings, and we leapt over hay bails to make it to the reading on time. The Purple Coneflower Tent was our first stop after our three-hour volunteer shift. We arrived to hear Kansas Poet Laureate Caryn Miriam-Goldberg speaking and reading about poetry inspired by place, her places being the Flint Hills and Kansas. H. C. Palmer followed her and spoke about the healing qualities that are housed in the area where we were sitting and listening to poetry. He commented on how many of his poems started in a familiar setting but flowed toward his experiences in Vietnam and how he has found mending in the peace and expansion of the Kansas landscape.

Tom and I sprinted for some food and refreshments in the form of BBQ and beer and sprinted back to the next poetry reading focused on the works of William Stafford, one of the best and well-sounded voices of Kansas. The panel was composed of William Sheldon, former Kansas Poet Laureate Denise Low and Steven Hind. Their admiration for Stafford sounded strong and was only enhanced by the men on horseback in the background. The panel showed us that Stafford’s voice is one we all know but recognize in a special way because we know the places and attitudes he had written about and had shaped him as a writer. The approachable lines of Stafford where one of the few things that broke reverence and echoed laughter into the Flint Hills he so loved.

I had forgotten about the music. As I waited for my wife Leah to make it through the now packed traffic to get to a parking spot, I shared favorite Stafford poems with Mr. Hind and Sheldon over a beer, Tom knew them of course, and realized we were all there for another reason than just enjoying the Flint Hills through education and experience. Music: music for our ears and the hills and the clouds. When Tom and I arrived at noon, there were mostly 200 or so volunteers walking around. I stood up and took a real look around and saw the several thousands that had arrived. The masses had massed and it looked a little like an alien invasion.

The sound was trembling. It was like a pulse of crescendos that lived in the audiences’ ears shortly and then quickly traveled with the wind and space. It was a sound that traveled in the tall grass and amplified toward the heavens. The Kansas City Symphony is a beautiful voice that resounds like a natural coyote howl: an amplification of experience. Lyle Lovett was there, too, his smooth true-western voice in unison with the symphony and agriculture.

Lovett quoted the well-known playwright and poet William Inge’s work about Kansas not being flat but “level.” He was happy to be with the symphony and happy to be in the Flint Hills which, as he said, “Changes your life the first time you see it.” He was there as a fan, like Leah and Tom and I were, to encounter a place celebrated. A place full of songs, whether it be the poets or the music or the insects or the wind.

Matt Porubsky is not a licensed therapist, statistician, historian or medical professional. But he is the 2009 Distinguished Kansan of the Year in arts and entertainment. Take that! Most of the time he just makes stuff up. But all of these stories are based on actual events.