To Follow

I’ve known both the purity of a starlit desert night
And the comfort found in an illuminated city street.
I have lain on sands with my palms touching
Bits of dried sage brush,
My chest expanding and deflating
Rhythmically to the slow beat
Of the wilderness.
A velvet coverlet encompasses it all
From horizon to horizon,
But I somehow breathe more freely
Under this dark blanket,
Where I will never fear to inhale
As much air as possible
With every breath.
Yet, I now stand in a barren city.
As I walk, I feel nothing
But the vast nothingness within this road,
Nothing but my heels clicking against the concrete.
Do not call me to the sidewalk,
For I choose to sit on the yellow lines
In the middle of the road,
For this unsettling fog looms around each streetlight,
Glowing pale
And orange,
Like the ground below is smoldering.
While I may be from a place of
Expensive coffee cups and car horns,
I will never be guided
By smoke-surrounded lamps
Inevitably leading to the fire.
In the desert,
When you are the ice-capped mountains
And the tipis
And the sunrise
And the Sioux,
We see every star as the Northern star.