Travelin' (Feb. 1974)

I've traveled this country over
From its mountains to its plains.
As I've spent my life getting older,
There aren't too many places that I haven't been.

I've seen the exploding misty sun
Break the chill of a frosty autumn night in Maine.
I've felt the shimmering waters of California
Engulf the sun and send the moon to do its dance again.

I've helped a newborn calf escape through blood and pain
To set its wobbly legs on firm and fertile ground.
And I've put them back to ground again
When legs no longer dance and bound.

I've lived and loved with people too,
Worn and weary with History in their faces.
The love, the hate, the fears they chew,
When visiting them in their private spaces.

I've seen men in fields with plows and rakes and hoes.
They love the earth; its wind and rain and dirt.
The earth in turn sustains them full
With food and drink and love and shirt.

I've seen men too would rape the land
By choking it with concrete, gas and soot.
They would have the joyous fruits of nature's hand
Waiting on them hand and foot.

I've seen winter's shiny fields of black,
Hued by green in early spring,
Change to oceans of waving gold
With the harvest it will bring.

I've seen men's minds, once in harmony,
Overpowered and controlled by different shades of green and black.
I've seen the cold and hostile arm of nature
Reach out and bring them painful, screaming, dying, back.

I've seen men love.
I've seen men hate.
I've seen men and nature toil and struggle
To build, to grow, to live and create.

I love this land of lofty peaks and rolling prairies,
Gentle streams and cold, clear lakes.
I love its people too.
It's their civilization that I hate.

With the caress of wind throughout my hair,
Let me have intercourse with thee.
I create not other
Than when nature puts the tools in front of me.

Let me touch your mountains
And make love to your fields.
Let me share my seed with others.
Of you I live and in you my spirit shall yet yield!