ecological pressure for the evolution of a brain. Bill Yake
Sitting above an ancient Nez Perce fishing trap
in the cool shade of a manzanita bush
where a stream trickles into the lake,
I watch an Appaloosa mare lead a small band
of mustangs to drink from Wallowa Lake.
She — having just run like a filly for the fun of it,
across a frontier without fences, full of an older
wilder freedom — shares this scene with me.
Propinquity brings me to a quiet passion
that casts out my almost-thought
of how mid-life she looks just now . . . how her birth
was but a beginning and her death merely
destination . . . and shows how her life, how my life,
how our lives now are what’s lived in the in-between,
one day at a time in ways that unfold
the true nature of a species. Mine. Hers.
The horse and her landscape stare back at me
a moment, and I adjust my Self, my Life:
a deep image such as this requires the truth
