It's A Landscape That Has To Be

Words Were Medicine; They Were Magic And Invisible. They Came From Nothing Into Sound And Meaning. They Were Beyond Price; They Could Neither Be Bought Nor Sold.

They Have Assumed The Names And Gestures Of Their Enemies, But Have Held On To Their Own, Secret Souls; And In This There Is A Resistance And An Overcoming, A Long Outwaiting.

Once In His Life, A Man Ought To Concentrate His Mind Upon The Remembered Earth, I Believe. He Ought To Give Himself Up To A Particular Landscape In His Experience, To Look At It From As Many Angles As He Can, To Wonder About It, To Dwell Upon It. He Ought To Imagine That He Touches It With His Hands At Every Season And Listens To The Sounds That Are Made Upon It. He Ought To Imagine The Creatures There And All The Faintest Motions Of The Wind. He Ought To Recollect The Glare Of Noon And All The Colors Of The Dawn And Dusk.

The Kiowas Reckoned Their Stature By The Distance They Could See.

A Word Has Power In And Of Itself. It Comes From Nothing Into Sound And Meaning; It Gives Origin To All Things.