“’This is my letter to the World/That never wrote to me,’ said Emily Dickinson.
Of course she might have got more replies if she’d mailed it.”
– Margaret Atwood
Getting a feel, (it’s like the flu),
a brave stoic’s way of heralding
an approaching emotion
and the territories of sentiment,
a harsh, harsh place
for a soft, soft peoples,
the part of the trek
with stunning obstacles,
unfordable rivers of swallowing
undertow, timberline detours,
land wars, blizzards, carnivores
out for tender meat,
gunfighters plummeting
into abandoned mines of silver
and hearts of gold, gamblers
staking claim to the great interior,
perilous melodrama and mayhem,
the bartender’s treason,
a piano player’s deceit,
the celebrated false front,
territory clearly posted unsafe
for preachers and painters,
women and children,
the lost and the lovelorn.
But I reckon we’ll be lighting out
there anyway, sure as homesteaders
building defenseless sod houses
far, far away from sivilization.