My love is a mountain pass.
Older than me, and far more
experienced, I did not know
who wooed who, or why.
When she looked at me
with great basin starlight,
that very first night,
it was love at first sight.
I never needed more
than to merely brush
my tender way
through her fragrant sage
after a warm May rain.
Still, she called me with curlews,
along her valleys and draws,
to step as lightly as
fingertips on lips,
thighs, or hips.
The wind on my skin
would have been enough
even if I never felt
the satisfaction that comes
with being responsible for
her sighs of pure
springtime sunshine.
We tried together to turn
her ephemeral streams eternal.
I knelt in her shaking grasses,
worshiped her waters, and listened
how to help her glisten
with the sweetest morning dew.
Ours was a love
I thought would last forever.
Or, at least until at last
I was buried in her soft earth
where she could hold me closely
until I was soil once more.
But, cruel men stretched my love
like a prospector’s map
across a boardroom table
and forced me to watch
as they ripped from her
what she never wanted to give.
That’s when I knew
she wooed me and why:
When I saw the body
she shared with me
exposed so completely
to machines and human greed,
this body I shared with her
that she hardened with love
hardened with rage
and a rock solid resolve
to stop the cold-blooded murder
of my mountain pass lover.
#ProtectThackerPass #ProtectPeeheeMuhuh
Beautiful and true, Will. I believe the ancestors are making it hard for them to do this…
I am glad for the ancestors.