Field Notes of a Wanderer

You walk the land barefoot,

listening to the stories woven into stone,

the way water carves a canyon,

the way silence holds its breath before rain.

You teach us how to kneel in desert sand,

to place our palms against the pulse of earth

and feel the weight of all that has come before –

bones, wind, the slow turning of time.

You speak for the quiet places,

for red rock cathedrals where prayers

rise like heat from the valley floor,

for the spaces in between words

where the wild still sings.

You remind us that beauty is both fierce and fragile,

that love is resistance,

that the body holds the stories

we have yet to name.

You stand at the edge of grief and do not turn away.

You stand at the edge of hope and do not falter.

You show us how to belong to the land,

how to bear witness,

how to speak with a voice

as steady as the wind.

And as you move forward, still writing, still listening,

your words remain –

wild, unbroken,

like rivers finding their way home.

2025 Christina Bacon

All rights reserved.