On the Trail with Walkin' Jim Stoltz: Poet's Place.

A Thing of Beauty, A Sandwich Forever	Gates of the Mountians
Bull River Run	In the Basin
Floe Lake	Jet Dreams
Footprints in the Sand	Mountains of the Clouds
For Abbey	There in the Setting Sun

Raven at the Border

Other Earth Poets

Nimble Will Nomad's Poetry Page
Windsong
The Warrior Poets Society

Raven at the Border
By Walkin' Jim Stoltz

The raven grew lazily out of the north wind,
A speck on the silence of the distant horizon,
Beating her way slowly into my vision
Like the hand of a god coming to rest on my shoulder.

I stood at the border, primed and ready,
Blooming green caressing the vast desert at my feet.
She flew into my dream, and on into my day,
Living like a cloud in the seamless sky.

She owned my eyes and borrowed my heartbeat
For each slow flap of her ragged wings.
Closer with each begged-for minute,
she could have wrapped me up.
And flown on to Mexico with this thought hanging from her beak.

Instead she circled once, a spinning wheel of prayer,
Then twice, a frame within this slice of time,
Around my bursting love,
And began the long and regal flight back to a Nameless north
I took a step ……and tried to follow.

Footprints in the Sand
Original lyrics by Jacquie Schmall

On the cold Pacific shore Miwok Indians roam no more
Sandy footprints on the beach echo their name.
Of the life they did adore,
The Miwok sing no more,
But in my heart and memory they remain.

Where have the old ones gone before me?
Where is their magic other land.
How can I tell them I remember.
Miwok footprints in the sand.

Redwood forests greened the hills.
And the Miwok had their fill,
Ere the Golden Gate and Chinatown had fame.

Then the wagon trains arrived.
And the newcomers did thrive,
But the gentle Miwok could not do the same.

Where have the old ones gone before me?
Where is their magic other land.
How can I tell them I remember.
Miwok footprints in the sand.

The Spanish first 'n then the gold.
Then all the sickness that took hold,
Miwok land was sold and then the earthquakes came. And of the life they did adore,
The Miwok sing no more.
But in my heart and memory they remain.

Where have the old ones gone before me?
Where is their magic other land.
How can I tell them I remember,
Miwok footprints in the sand.

A Thing of Beauty, A Sandwich Forever
By Kathy Miner of Madison, WI

Beauty as well as bread, said Muir;
bread and beauty together, said Leopold,
as if they were separate things-
but beauty is my bread,
the staff of my life; I need it,
feed on it, relish it,
slather it generously with wonder
and chow right down.
Sometimes I make sandwiches with it
and sometimes I cube it into pudding
and some desperate times I eat it hot from the oven,
too impatient for manners,
tearing the loaf into rough handfuls
and stuffing them into my waiting mouth.
Some slower times I participate in its making,
cutting down fair tawny wheatstalks
with a scythe of my own careful crafting,
grinding them to flour in the mortar and pestle of my
consciousness, kneading and shaping and punching the dough
until I am satisfied with its texture,
then watching it rise and become golden
as it bakes and solidifies.
Beauty and bread? Hardly-
for some they are one and the same,
minimum daily requirements
not yet established.

These are the "gates",
The way in,
The door to another world, another place,
To "the mountains".
In the still of morning a canyon wren trills.
Osprey scream.
Pelicans glide by on reflections.
Tiers of rock slip upward from feet of green glass,
Smooth as silk,
Afraid to shatter something the wind surely will.
There is something timeless in the meeting of cliff and water,
An unending tug for yin and yang,
A constant game of give and take.
My eyes are drawn to where they meet,
That edge of liquid and stone,
That line of stopping
And that of letting go.
A fine line, clear as this crystal mountain morning,
It's a spider web of a line,
The wind through the eagle's wing slowly flapping down river,
It's the motorboats rude intrusion,
Its wake sending ripples of light
To tear down the canyon walls.
It's a line of black and white and gray,
Of where we've been and where we go,
A fine line of choice, this gate,
The Gates of the Mountains.

For Abbey

Sound asleep under the stars,
I lay snug in my bed of rabbitbrush and sage,
Lulled to dream by open plains
Stretching miles inside of me,
The sweep of heavens spilling stars down to each horizon,
Deep canyons of downy sleep
Secure and snug to the Earth, I wallowed through,
Until they came.

Jet fighters,
Playing cold games with swollen egos,
Rape the desert night.
A violent,
Ugly passing.
Cracking peace and split in two,
The Earth rolls over.

I sat up in reflex,
Awake, in one motion, scared.
Then, mad when I knew,
To scream my curse and shake my fist,
A ritual of passing,
Of listening alone and willing the silence
To creep back to its gentle lair,
The jet's yawn swallowed by the miles of dark.

The air hung like a granite tomb,
Heavy and waiting
Still and expecting
'Til the coyotes rose,
Just over the hill,
To yip and howl
Their own complaints chasing into the night.