I am spending my birthday in the badlands
I have spent many birthdays in the badlands
This one is different

Badland birthdays of old were filled with sharp cliffs
Parched earth and poison water
Searing sun baked my brain, vultures picked at my bones

The rough trail circled, no way out
Darkness came early, frigid air chilled my blood
Shear rock trapped my soul

This day of my sixty-fourth year the Montana Badlands embrace me
Rugged calico breasts sculpted by dinosaur feet push upward into sky
Stalagmite fingers cup the clay mounds presenting them to the gods

The sun warms my face, the trails invite a walk, and the crisp air fills My body, five decades have freed my soul to fly over the broken Landscape, dip into the valleys, skip from nipple to nipple and pull this Tapestry of weather-beaten earth to my chest

This life full of choice and possibilities, love and freedom
Kind and gentle as the badlands are coarse
A life juxtaposed to itself, transformed, eroded evil melded into a gift Of worth, on this day of my birth

Makoshika State Park
The Dinosaur Trail
Glendive, Montana