north dakota badlands

(October 2022. Waldo and I woke up to a bison outside our bus door. We spent the day exploring Theodore Roosevelt National Park. I think the North Dakota Badlands are even more beautiful than the South Dakota Badlands, and more alive. I believe I was reading Braiding Sweetgrass around this time.)

do you hear the silence?

every bird and bison bellow and rodent chirp is a daring,
the courage of small things in large places.

something is missing—
when will men again take their place?
a vacuum the shape of fingerprints
massacred, separated—
harmony off by a note.

the little missouri weeps by, drying.

i wandered with waldo off leash
in the cold october air
a national park free again.

i trusted cold earth cracked and strong
to find a flat rock atop a hoodoo butte, an altar
upon which i gave thanks to the setting sun
out loud in the platformed silence,
thanks for the abundance of air
(i need so wonderfully little),
thanks for the strength of the rock
holding me up to the heavens,
thanks for the tobacco
i choose to imagine as sacred.

between the pedestal rocks is a dark hole,
as deep as i can believe.

there is no such thing as bad land.