Nature calls

I remember a hundred lovely lakes, and recall the fragrant breath of pine

and fir and cedar and poplar trees.

The trail has strung upon it, as upon a thread of silk, opalescent dawns

and saffron sunsets.

It has given me blessed release from care and worry

and the troubled thinking of our modern day.

It has been a return to the primitive and the peaceful.

Whenever the pressure of our complex city life thins my blood and benumbs my brain,

I seek relief in the trail; and when I hear the coyote wailing to the yellow dawn,

my cares fall from me — I am happy.

 

~Hamlin Garland, McClure’s, February 1899