The Heart Away From Nature

An old Lakota, bone-wise, whispered

Of hearts turned stone without the green whispers

Of wind-tongued leaves, the soft handshakes

Of branch with branch. The man he spoke of,

Captive of his own concrete, his breaths

Short, as if rationed by the city's tight grip.

No tender shoot or bloom could reach him,

Nor the rustling counsel of rivers, the patient

Earth’s nurturing. He knew the wilt of compassion,

The shrivel of sympathy, witnessed

How men turned blind to their own kind.

So he kept the young ones near the tall grass

Where thoughts could bloom wide under big sky,

Where hearts learned the soft shuffle of bison,

The lullabies of brooks, growing

Gentle in their chest, beating a respect

For all that breathes, walks, and dies.

“Stay close," he’d say, "to the world's softening,

For it is easy to harden without its touch."

It was his gift, this knowing—

A gift he gave, wrapped in the wilderness.