Frontiers

Photos and poems by Craig Rock unless noted.

Zion National Park, Utah

Green Valley, AZ

Tonasket WA

Molson WA

Frontier

unmarked lands scorched by the gods

forests with no trails, no one before you

to show easy ways, backtracking

this way! no, that way!

again and again backtracking

coming across

skeletons of past lives

that ended so quickly

with wrong turns.

nights falling

on open fires fed by a million stars

sketching tomorrow's paths

through nowhere in a long dream

to some place called home.

And one morning

after hopeless cold you wake up

and you are there!

and you've been there

for a long time.


Free Moving Legs

Out West

Free moving legs


of the soul,


pumping air into the heart


of time,


making space to travel


from narrow roads


of the absurd and madness


to open fields of freedom


with dignity for all


in body and mind


a new beginning


out West.


Above photos: Posters designed by Canadian railroads to attract settlers to the Canadian West.

"Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant, no matter how friendly and even tempered is the beast, one is affected by every twitch and grunt." Prime Minister Elliot Trudeau on Canada bordering the United States, 1969.


Copyright Craig Rock, all photos except posters. Top photos: Southern Utah (2), Tonasket WA, Molson WA.