Flint

I could not love a land that did not have flint.

My soul can breathe here among these unfolding trees.

The shadowing limestone

And the acrid taste of hot dust,

Like essential trace elements, nourish me.

Thus, I do not find it strange that the youthful Inupiat

Will not leave the tundra.

The smell of fish and seal on the frigid ocean breeze

Must thrill his lungs

As this Ozark air does mine.

And the grumble of pack-ice through death-cold Arctic nights

Must bring to his Eskimo sleep a sense of peaceful rectitude

Such as I feel in these woods.

Nor do I wonder that the Apache loves his shifting desert sand.

There, among the piñon trees and seldom-blooming saguaro,

Is his universe's center,

The things to which all else is compared and found wanting.

I could not love a land that did not have flint,

That did not shade itself with iron-hard blackoak,

That did not loom with limestone cliffs to orient my soul,

For how can there be beauty in a flower

Without such bleakness for backdrop?

How can delicacy be felt except by starkest contrast

To muscular blackoak limbs flexed in their millions?

Only the ancient walnut trees and massive blue-gray hickories

Can give the struggling dogwood its proper frame.

No, I could not love a land that did not have flint,

For flint is the very bones of the gods who made me,

And my blood rings with it.

But I can comprehend

How others might require the arrowing pines that define the Oregon sky,

Or the steadfast durance of Denali's white peaks.

I, though, could not love a land that did not have flint.