A Place to Call Home

Some call me a tumbleweed. A wild heart. A free bird (FREEBIRD!).

I have an inner, insatiable passion for the American West. Maybe it was a past life, maybe it was because my Mom and Dad met in the Black Hills of South Dakota, or maybe it’s because it feels so much like home.

For many years, I have been traveling west from Minnesota to the Black Hills and beyond. I run my car on the long stretches of highway and experience the landscape change from wispy praire grasses, to desert-like mounds of earth that transition into rivers rushing through canyons that make way for heart-opening mountains, and valleys that bring you to your knees.

When I leave the skyline of the city in my rearview mirror, I get to come back to the authentic me — a girl who is at peace, clear in her thinking, strong as a buffalo, and just plain happy.

While checking out The Black Hills Travel Blog page, I came across a recent post on Celebrating Poetry the Cowboy Way and Badger Clark. Badger resided for more than 20 years in Custer State Park living life as he “saw fit” and writing poems that stand the test of time even though they were penned nearly a century ago.

His most famous work is an anthem to the Old West: “A Cowboy’s Prayer.” It may read old-fashioned, but the meaning really spoke to me and my western heart. If you love the west, I really think you’ll love this sweet little poem:

 A Cowboy’s Prayer 

Oh Lord, I’ve never lived where churches grow.
I loved creation better as it stood
That day You finished it so long ago
And looked upon Your work and called it good.
I know that others find You in the light
That’s sifted down through tinted window panes,
And yet I seem to feel You near tonight
In this dim, quiet starlight on the plains.

 I thank You, Lord, that I am placed so well,
That You have made my freedom so complete;
That I’m no slave of whistle, clock or bell,
Nor weak-eyed prisoner of wall and street,
Just let me live my life as I’ve begun
And give me work that’s open to the sky;
Make me a pardner of the wind and sun,
And I won’t ask a life that’s soft or high.

 Let me be easy on the man that’s down;
Let me be square and generous with all.
I’m careless sometimes, Lord, when I’m in town,
But never let ’em say I’m mean or small!
Make me as big and open as the plains,
As honest as the hawse between my knees,
Clean as the wind that blows behind the rains,
Free as the hawk that circles down the breeze!

Forgive me, Lord, if sometimes I forget.
You know about the reasons that are hid.
You understand the things that gall and fret;
You know me better than my mother did.
Just keep an eye on all that’s done and said
And right me, sometimes, when I turn aside,
And guide me down the long, dim trail ahead
That stretches upward toward the Great Divide.

Badger Clark

{Where do you find your “second home?” Is it some place you travel? While practicing yoga? Sipping a cup of chamomile? Please share!}