Alt.country or Chinagrass

 

I listen to the first song and hear the sun creeping up

before it slaps me on the back like an old friend.

 

The journey tonight begins with music as the bass walks

over paths and fields of the flat Kazakh grasslands.

 

Someone plays a flute to the smoke from a kitchen fire

and the tumbling, freezing hills are painted by a dombra.

 

I walk on, cut across the river's flow, fields of starving

horses and to a gorge where rocks have the blackest of eyes.

 

The road goes higher and my spirits rise like a violin.

Animals come out to ask what kind am I and warn me

 

that round the bend is a dragon waiting to crush the unwary

and throw them to the Devil so he can eat their souls.

 

I don't find a dragon, only a chill in the air, soft clouds

drifting over the sky's pink throat and the restless feet

 

of children

frozen in a dream that belongs everywhere.