The sunrise school bus collecting motel-living kids
won’t make headlines or rhyme in a country song,
yet we look away knowing something’s wrong. 

Distant kin of the American Cowboy drive rigs across the land –
ghosts of Marlboro men who pushed herds over the Plains – 
delivering our fix of next day, must-have, primal demands.

The irony of the Cherokee boot outlet in Custer County is lost on all
except the bloodline of Chief Black Kettle, still trapped in
ancient lands with scores unsettled.

Giant roadside crosses and three-armed windmills compete
to save us from ourselves in the desert dusk of Route 66 — a place
that heals life’s stones and sticks.

Beneath its copy and paste flatness there lies tension and tears, God and
guns, hope and hurt, in this place where earth meets sky and heaven
meets dirt.