Bouncing along in a jeep
toward distant Laramie Peak
on the high plains of Wyoming,
I think I must be some sort
of charging bison stampeded
by my own desire to climb
a mountain of such a perfect
pyramid shape standing
so purple on the horizon.
Switching back and forth
through forests of Douglas fir
and aspen, I cannot seem to
gain the higher pinnacles
looming above, and I try to
dream them lower down in the
valley, and then, way beyond
my dreamtime, I scramble up
the last high spiny ridges to
the fire tower and gaze far out
on the rolling sagebrush prairie
to a very faint dark line of
the sacred Black Hills.