Over the grasses of the plains
20 miles from Wall Drugs
they appear like a striated
birthday cake, celebration of
the earth; red and yellow rock
where nothing grows but rattlers.
The fossil rocks keep track
over 30 million years to study
horse, sheep, rhinoceros, pig.
Their candles still burning
words with a whiff of sage.
Clouds in layers like spearfish
and arrowheads in the sky
point to perfect weather.
As I travel I see the salmon
shapes and wolves worshipping
together at Devil's Tower.
Michael Magee spend the summer of 2014 travelling round South Dakota. The trip inspired a number of poems about South Dakota.
Wall Drugs, is a mall and tourist attraction in Wall, South Dakota, only a few miles from the Badlands National Park. Michael Magee has written a poem about Wall Drugs.
The Badlands of South Dakota