Escape, by DAYTON LUMMIS

It would be those great distances,

the silence, wind sweeping

across nowhere into nothing--

the sensation of freedom,

immature, perhaps,

escape . . .

most people are not

into all that, not really . . .

only drifters know,

and probably they don’t

really understand.

It’s a country of the mind

not wandered into easily,

missed by thinking

about it too much;

the looking at maps

when rain is drifting down

on quiet nights

in overcrowded lands,

too many people around,

the heaping up,

pressing in.

But that vast space,

it was nothing,

a great emptiness--

relax,

knowing it is there,

having wandered in it.

From “High Lonesome: The Vanishing American West.” (California Classics: $9.95) 1994 Reprinted by permission. If this is not available at your bookstore, for single orders write to P.O. Box 29756, Los Angeles, Calif. 90029; for trade orders call SCB Distributors at (800) 729-6423. California Classics Books, run and owned by Lionel Rolfe, publishes authors and issues about California, its literary heritage and its modern-day triumphs and troubles. It’s a small press in your own back yard, worthy of your interest and support.