Lanark, Idaho

I dream of a landscape

a gray, colorless sky

hills of scrubby weeds

spotted with gnarled, wind-tilted sagebrush

dry, cracked soil punctuated by puddles--little fertile promises





I smile at the sharp bite of waist-high thistles

their cheerful purple heads nod as I pass

my nose is tickled by the spicy perfume of a cedar tree whose

bark and wood were recently torn by an eager young deer

a hawk's sharp dive cuts my breath in half





So much history in these hills

so many generations

stone tools, arrowheads

antique, dilapidated farm equipment

mysterious piles of rocks and half-collapsed structures

how many people are still here, hidden in the ground?





I feel them





My bones cry for this land

it pulls at my body

draws me down to it

I could lie here and crumble into the earth

my hair transforming into coarse, wild grass

my heart bursting into a bright bloom of Indian paintbrush