I am a drop of cold, clear water, melting, falling from snowfields on the roof of the Rocky Mountains. Tumbling, I become a rivulet, swept forward by a stream, slowed by mountain meadow, racing in swift current, absorbing tributary arteries, my vital strength building...

In the American West, there are still places where pronghorn antelope migrate hundreds of miles as they have for untold generations, back to the time of the Pleistocene. Hundreds of different varieties of bird life fill a vast sky, then land to nest and feed on a land rich with grains, berries, and insects...