road trippin' (gypsy august)

W2 to Minnesota... 

Grand Teton, Wind River Canyon to Thermopolis Hot Springs

Sundance, Buffalo, and Devil's Tower, Crazy Horse

Minneapolis and Hudson, Wisconsin

rivers till i reach you

AmeriCorps Graduation [more on goodbyes]

Be ahead of all parting, as if it had already happened
like winter, which even now is passing.
For beneath the winter is a winter so endless
that to survive it at all is a triumph of the heart.

Be forever dead in Eurydice, and climb back singing.
Climb back praising as you return to connection.
Here among the disappearing, in the realm of the transient,
be a ringing glass that shatters as it rings.

Be.  And, at the same time, know what it is not to be.
That emptiness inside you allows you to vibrate
in resonance with the world.  Use it for once.

To all that has run its course, and to the vast unsayable
numbers of beings abounding in nature,
add yourself gladly, and cancel the cost.

-Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus, part two, XIII

one more for the stars and the eyes of the walls / i saw your face, i heard you calling out

i am on my way, i am on my way
i am on my way back to where i started

california, oklahoma and all of the places i ain't ever been to but
down in the valley with whisky rivers
these are the places you will find me hiding,
these are the places i will always go
these are the places i will always go

so i wish i was a slave to an age-old trade
lord have mercy on my rough and rowdy ways