Because I helmed that ’83 Suburban, fishtailed over
washboards, bottomed out against deep ruts as I sped
through Hadsell’s Crossing, down the Old O.P.I road,
across the Oregon Trail, through arroyos and over breaks.

Because I nearly drowned – baptized by accident –
in the flash-flood swollen stream I once raced
ships of willow twigs down, in waters which I loved then (and now),
which washed earth and sky together in rippled pools.

Because, though my childhood flights up granite outcroppings
led to the quaking of my knees, from there I could see
trucks and tents nestled below, our draw, green against all
distance, the ashen roll of sage, greasewood, rabbitbrush.

Because I learned to stand boot-to-boot with the men
by watching my mother and my aunt swagger
around the fire ring telling long-shot and big-fish stories
while amber whiskey rounded the circle, passed hand to hand to hand.

Because even state lines and mountain ranges cannot separate me
from Wyoming’s wilds, and new landmarks only remind me of the old,
the Wallowas of the Winds, the Palouse of the Red Desert,
the Frank Church of the only religion I ever knew.

Because even in a new town, in the midst of a new education, as I wander
among brick buildings, I worry over cheatgrass, flocks of oil rigs, everything
that could alter the antiquated map I carry of all I know:
the Sweetwater, the Yellowstone Cow Camp, the Old Ellis Place.

But mostly because I can’t fold it away with the passing years,
fearing that without the tangled weight of history, without
the metallic tang of generations, I might find myself chasing
careers through cities instead of sage grouse and antelope across high plains.

Because, finally, the place and mine in it pull me back
whisper of belonging as bright as paintbrush and as intricate
as aspen roots, and the map writes and rewrites itself
and me, fraying to the white, far edge of the horizon.