From Devils Tower in Wyoming

wind above, lake below

Deadwood, South Dakota— Photo by Jonathan Potter ⓒ 2024

From Devils Tower in Wyoming
to the Black Hills of South Dakota,
arriving on the set
of the old west Deadwood
and tracing the footsteps of Wild Bill
and Seth Bullock to await the dawn

over the presidential district,
we walk the gulch and gawk at fellow
gawkers hearkening back
to the 1800s
and keenly felt in the inner truth
of the present madness afflicting

these United States and all of us
teetering on the edges of our
own souls' devils’ towers'
pinacles where flowers
grow unseen and from where we rappel
back down assisted by the frayed ropes

of a broken-down democracy,
hoping that in the sunrise of love
we might find our way past
Mount Rushmore and on to
Birchbark Books in Minneapolis
where stories, poems, and truth reside.

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