I've been reading Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon about his road trips across the US and this poem about one of my own road trips comes to mind. With the price of fuel going up and no end in sight those days of road tripping will soon become a thing of the past and will be nothing more than fragments of history in my personal archives.

In The Spirit Of The West

As storm clouds gather over the Rockies

in Montana and Wyoming

snow blankets the western Black Hills.

On Rosebud Reservation

in South Dakota cold wind penetrates

my bones and red sumac paints the yellow bluffs

where wild horses once roamed.

Farther east cattle graze on the prairie

with dumb cow mentality among alfalfa

and hay bales.

Old ghosts and memories linger

in my hometown.

Seeing family and relatives I hear

the word God spoken again

and find it hard to stay for more

than three days.

Driving west through the night

I cross into Wyoming

heading for the Little Big Horns.


The next day I hike up

to the Medicine Wheel

with fresh snow on the trail.

Cold winds blow and heavy clouds

bury the afternoon sun

as I sit and pray to the Great Mother

for better things to come.

Below Medicine Pass

at Five Springs down in the meadow

the morning sun radiates warmth

after a cold night

and I write a letter to a loved one.

A short trail leads me

to a waterfalls where I listen

to it roar over the canyon walls.

The spirit of the west speaks to me

in many ways-

the many becoming one.