Montana

The first five hundred miles from the shores Pacific across the Cascades to Coeur d'Alene and then on to Heron, Montana were a tantalizing taste of more to come next summer. After you are on the road for a while, the destination matters less than what you experience along the way. Time slows down and days melt into nights and then more days. Returned reluctantly to the East Coast by air to fulfill work obligations but with a solemn oath to return to Spokane by train and then Coeur d'Alene to pick up the trail in 2010.

Rainy Pass

High above the snow line

Where the people do not go

Breathless, arched to heaven

Straining, banking, breathing
Sun drenched air

conditioned the cascading waters

pierce every cell

Lowland strangers here

We grasp for meaning even as
We climb

Raven spreads her wings

Wren nods

New life cries out

A warning

These are sacred heights
Do not ask

Do not stare

Pass through lightly,

With no sound

On Sunset Highway (Rte 2), Heading East

Suspended in time and space

The taut road ahead

Shimmers, a twisted steel cable

Stretched across the pale yellow hilltops

I scan the sunrise
Back mercifully to the wind
and sodden shore

I am an inchworm inching my way

Above the crowd

I am a Great Wallenda, 
Gripping the balance beam

Holding the pose

Sliding one slipper
Ahead of the of the other, steadily

In perfect tune

Two wheels firmly planted
on the high line

Whidbey Island Book Club

Safe in the rain shadow, bonds secured

Words launched into the high canopy

Rest adrift

Disperse

In the worn cafe, animated currents

Born of shared memories

Seek a shore

Still in the deep past, tangled here,

In nettle, elderberry, ocean spray

Whisperings with softened edges

Swinomish

Suquamish

Snohomish

We are here

In the mist, stories rising

in words,

in bondage,

in crossings.

Leaving Seattle

By ferry north toward Port Townsend and Whidbey Island..and so begins the Rolling Home Tour 2009.