Places and Times

John Day Country

There the spirit may sing its making,
and the pilgrim wander the wind-kissed ridges
to commune with hawks in the high desert.
There I would go to get heart's ease.
I would shelter with cougars in the shadowy pines.
I would sing with coyotes in a star-scarred sky.
I would chant with the rapids roiling through the canyons.
I would den with the bear and dance with the deer.
I would run with the rabbits through the sage and the sand
I would untwist the tangle of my terrors
and walk a free man on the wind's highways.
There I would live, lonely and clean,
where the air's so thin the eagle falters.
There I would sing my spirit song.

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Updated last on:  2001/05/26