Well, this month has been National Poetry Month, and the end of my long library career! My last day as a librarian was April 16th. The library threw me a nice party and I received some very special gifts and cards. One in particular, though, touched me deeply. My very good friend, Lora Koehler, gave me a card with Edward Abbey's (one of my favorite authors and eco-troublemaker) "Benedicto" on it.

Like me, Lora is a person who loves the high wild places and feels more comfortable out of doors than in. She's also an amazingly gifted writer. You'll be seeing books from her in about 18 months. She knew this would resonate with me. I thought I'd share it on Random Notes in celebration of National Poetry and to setting off on "crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous" trails that lead to "the most
amazing view."


                  Benedicto

                                May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous,
                                leading to the most amazing view.
                                May your rivers flow without end, 
                                meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells,
                               past temples and castles and poet's towers
                               into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch
                               and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps
                               and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas,
                               domes and pinnacles and grottos of 
                               endless stone,
                               and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm
                               where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs,
                               where deer walk across white sand beaches,
                              where storms come and go
                              as lightning clangs upon the high crags,
                              where something strange and more beautiful
                              and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams 
                              waits for you--
                              beyond that next turning of the canyon walls.

                                                                                --Edward Abbey