Fleeing a failed marriage and haunted by ghosts of his past, Luis Alberto Urrea jumped into his car several years ago and headed west. Driving cross-country with a cat named Rest Stop, Urrea wandered the West from one year's Spring through the next. Hiking into aspen forests where leaves "shiver and tinkle like bells" and poking alongside creeks in the Rockies, he sought solace and wisdom. In the forested mountains he learned not only the names of trees—he learned how to live. As nature opened Urrea's eyes, writing opened his heart. In journal entries that sparkle with discovery, Urrea ruminates on music, poetry, and the landscape. With wonder and spontaneity, he relates tales of marmots, geese, bears, and fellow travelers. He makes readers feel mountain air "so crisp you feel you could crunch it in your mouth" and reminds us all to experience the magic and healing of small gestures, ordinary people, and common creatures. Urrea has been heralded as one of the most talented writers of his generation. In poems, novels, and nonfiction, he has explored issues of family, race, language, and poverty with candor, compassion, and often astonishing power. Wandering Time offers his most intimate work to date, a luminous account of his own search for healing and redemption.

In this provocative and thoughtful anthology, many voices join in illuminating the remarkably vast and varied American West. The verse collected here ranges from American Indian tribal poems to old folk songs like “The Streets of Laredo,” from country-western lyrics to the work of such foreign poets as Bertolt Brecht and Zbigniew Herbert. Here is the West in all its rich variety–the harsh life of farms and ranches; man’s destructive invasion into forest and desert solitudes; the bars and bistros of San Francisco and Hollywood; Pacific surf and endless highways; the ghost towns, the poverty, and the legendary world of cowpunchers and gunslingers. From Robert Frost’s “Once by the Pacific” to Charles Bukowski’s “Vegas,” from Fred Koller’s “Lone Star State of Mind” to Thom Gunn’s “San Francisco Streets”–the West is evoked in all its incarnations, both actual and mythic.

As a pastor of Mountain Top Cowboy Church I have discovered that there is little material designed specifically for cowboy churches or cowboy ministries. Although I have been in the ministry for 14 years I had never considered writing a book however the Lord had other plans. In October of 2009 I broke my leg while competing at a 40 and over bull riding which required surgery. I do not believe that it was God's plan for me to ride a bull at the age of 46 but this book is an example that the Lord will use every situation we are in for good if we will allow Him to use us. During my time of recovery I started writing poems and short stories about my rodeo days then it turned to cowboy poetry. In the beginning it was a way to pass the time and deal with my situation. As I continued to write I began to relate my poems to scripture and it was then that the Lord truly began to use them to reach others. After sharing a few with my church I discovered that they could be a useful tool in cowboy churches and ministries or those in the western culture. This book of poems and proverbs is just another example of the Lord's Grace and Mercy in my life; it is because of His love that I am On The Trail

"A dozen original poems on the `horrifying' subjects (ghouls, vampires, skeletons, etc.) so dear to many young hearts....Your steel-nerved patrons will appreciate both poems and pictures."--School Library Journal.