North Dakota

I will write for you

a story

never written down before

but now with pen and ink in hand

and spoken only once

about the Great Sandstone Walls

which were swallowed again

that night driving through North Dakota

alone

and picking up an old man

on the badlands together

we drove.

He said that

untruth

had been the grease in his life

until standing there

caressed and purified

that penetrating

a slight grassland breeze

his soul

leaving him naked

facing his own truth

and then after talking all night

slipped away

napping at a truckstop

early that morning.

so I ask of you

because all the details

will surely not be understood

for your patience

this the nature of such tales

not to be entirely understood

but in its telling

hoped that

a small sacrifice

held within a clay bowl

and that loving-kindness

held within the iron vessel

of mercy in the midst of our

O Great Unknown

is found within our hearts.