A White River Valley

Go and Catch a Falling Star (Adapted by Joe from John Donne’s 1605 song) Go and catch a falling star Tell me where all past years are Teach me to hear the wind speaking Or to keep off the bees stinging, and find What wind serves to ransom the honest mind?

What trees speak languages I can learn?

What star falls in order for me to catch?

If you were born to strange sights Things invisible to me Ride 10 thousand days and nights Till each show white hairs on you Or strange wonders befell you And swear nowhere Lives a man so true and fair If you find one let me know Such a pilgrimage I would go Yet to wonder, If the next door, I pass through, I’ll meet you (Repeat above stanzas) Go and catch a falling star My wishes have been placed upon them, now I’ll try to catch one home to you.

“Yes,” Joe says after they finish singing, “It’s good to remember.” He goes inside his home for breakfast, she follows to have some of his espresso strength coffee and then it’s time for camping.

Joe talks about the land as she drives Highway 40 into the Black Hills. He talks about some of the formations along the road as if they are relatives, he compares the land to women and children, cars and then he says to her, “You are the land.”

“From ash to ash,” is her Catholic response.

“No, you are a manifestation of the land. The land has called you to be a guardian, a keeper, a herald of change.”

“But I am still so uncertain. Am I to know what the change will bring, or even what the change is? Shouldn’t I already know how to keep and guard the land, how to produce change?” The only time she feels Joe’s statement makes any sense is when she is on her family’s Wisconsin farm where her father has put aside part of the land to let it “go back to nature”.