David Wolfersberger painted these images on his 3500-mile bicycle tour of the West Coast undertaken after he found himself homeless. Inspired by his archetypal journey and the paintings of places central to her own life, Madronna Holden wrote a poem in response to each of them. The three selections here are from the 75 paintings/poems in Going the Distance, which Wolfersberger and Holden are planning to publish as a book.

Chasing Wheels

The mountains turn
On their own wheels
Of dawn and dusk,

They don’t need to chase our wheels.

Neither do their foothills
Where the earth expresses
Its initial appetite for heaven.

(It will go on hungry
That way until it reaches
The top of the world).

On the plains below
The teasel does its royal best
To please with its crown of purple,
And dandelion seeds float
Our breath before the sun—
Those who deem these weeds
Forget how we ourselves
First set them here
Beside us.

The horses we corral
Won’t ask us where to run
If we turn them loose
(We can only watch them
Step on the sky as they
Rear toward freedom.)

But what story
Can we give the wild dogs
(So used to our voices)
Who have not forgiven
Our spinning wheels?

They will continue
Biting at our heels
Until we tell stories
Good enough for the mountains
And the horses and the weeds—
Good enough for all wild things—
Including those released
From our own chains.