My Westering Heart

Certain precious things spill down from the mountains in the night, wander listless and hungry through the dark, layered greens of the lodge pole pines in the upper marches before making their way down past the roar of cataracts to the quiet places where dark drippings from the stone collect like lost dreams looking for a dreamer. This is the country of bears, where poetry lingers and where a Canadian poet like Gordon R. Menzies collects words hiding beneath the rocks and caught in the Old Man's Beard that hangs from every tree, sifting the air for more. Here is a worn, weathered leather backpack heavy with western treasures...