The Land of Winds

My home is among the winds

blowing from the Rockies

onto the pale blonde Thunder Basin

Across the trout-filled Yellowstone river

And reverently through the sacred Black Hills

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Showing no mercy in winter

a bone-chilling battle cry

Stabbing the snow horizontally

against a calf caught in a western blizzard

A war the ranchers won't win

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Curling the smoke from a spring campfire

into thin braids high above the pines

The tent sides flap long into the night

as dreams whisper of lives lived long ago

Dusty wagon trains and rugged saloon fights

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Blasting the Big Sky with every

crackle flash of dry summer heat

Thunderheads gather over herds of bison

charging alongside millions of translucent ghosts

Remains of slaughter from the 1800s

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Swirling the spade-shaped cottonwood leaves

and shaking crabapples from their burdened branches

Gusts of crisp fall air lead a hesitant doe

and her speckled children to modern safety

The shadow of a towering turbine

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Twisting through the keyhole of my front door

a breeze sways to an age-old rhythm

The siren's song of generations

who know the melody of seasonal Chinooks

And call the land of winds their home