I am planning a trip with my father and brothers
Following the rivers north and westward from Kansas City
As Lewis and Clark once did
Traveling through Plains and Badlands and Mountains
Seeing with my own eyes
That point where civilization ends
From an Interstate Highway pull-off
The beauty of mountains carved by the hand of God
Or geologic time and erosion
Reshaped by man and high explosives
To form edifices of our memories
The mythology of our great leaders
Causing both awe and embarrassment
Not far away the native peoples create another tableau
Reclaiming the stones as their own
I put my feet and heart at the mouth of the coulee
On the edge of the Little Bighorn River
And imagine how hard it was to run breathlessly to the top of the hill
Being broken in body and spirit when overrun alongside Custer
Simultaneously, I’m bounding from cover to cover like the Crow and the Sioux
Feeling raw emotion
As the land and the white standing stones mark the vanity of
Manifest Destiny at all costs
I hear that Yellowstone in the springtime is gorgeous
If you don’t mind the traffic jams of bears and bison
And tourists lined up in their recreational vehicles
In May, the sun-chasing roads should be open
While the peaks are still blanketed white
And the rivers start to boil with snow-melt
Stampeding like the Rodeo in Cody, Wyoming
I just want to take it all in and
See the West that was
And never was
And never really could be
But still is the West
The one that lives in our collective memories and pulses with the heartbeat of
America
