Taking The Hard Road

I climb up high and look on the four seas,
Heaven and earth spreading out so far.
Frost blankets all the stuff of autumn,
The wind blows with the great desert's cold.
The eastward-flowing water is immense,
All the ten thousand things billow.
The white sun's passing brightness fades,
Floating clouds seem to have no end.
Swallows and sparrows nest in the wutong tree,
Yuan and luan birds perch among jujube thorns.
Now it's time to head on back again,
I flick my sword and sing Taking the Hard Road.
--Li Bai (701--762)
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Unkar Rapid from Poin'dexter (top)
Unkar Rapid from Escalante Route (middle)
Laurie Anderson: "The Geographic North Pole"
outside Hance Canyon (below)
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white-winged swallow
grasshopper sparrow
the laughing heart