Stagecoach Driver — Image by kenne
Westward the wagon jolted
along the ruts and trails,
along the interminable course of empire,
while the sun took a long time going down in the fields.
The earth was slow and hard
and there was nothing to see but land:
it was not a country at all
but the sketch of a country,
the material out of which countries are made.
— from “Nebraska, 1883,” by Edward Hirsch
The dust of travel still clings to his body,
and particles of sunlight fade on his skin.
What has happened to the eternal presences?
— from “The Renunciation of Poetry,” by Edward Hirsch
How romantic – the ‘sketch of a country’ , however, belonged to the native people who had inhabited it for thousands of years.
Reblogged this on Becoming is Superior to Being and commented:
. . . just a little bit of the old west. — kenne
The Old West has always appealed to me. Perhaps I lived there in a previous lifetime.