My whole life I have been looking West
from the apron of the Wasatch
into the countless spines and valleys
of The Great Basin.
The Big Nothing.
The living room floor of America.
And then on a whim I got in the truck
and I drove the ten hours
across the amber plains of Idaho
and the knolls of Oregon
to the east ***** of the Cascades.

From this side it looks pretty much the same.
The ponderosas suddenly end
and there is this massive, untamed
space.

And while I will grant that most everything here
is both the same
and completely different-
desert (but without cacti)
mountains (all volcanoes)
forests (but sparse and flat)
there is nothing foreign
about the carpet of sagebrush
in the lowlands of the west,
regardless of which edge you are standing on.

For the first time it does not scare me,
the immensity of it,
the emptiness of it,
the quiet of it,
and for the first time I feel I am not looking out
toward the opposite end of it.
For the first time,
it feels like home.