Throughout the book, Justice Hobbs reveals his respect and love for the grandeur of nature - especially in his adopted home state of Colorado - and imparts the ongoing need to balance beneficial use with preservation.

Justice Hobbs has assigned all of his royalties from the book to the Legal Aid Foundation of Colorado.

Pack our wagon, so the axles ride a little
Higher than the wagon-tearing stones, not so high
A capsize-wind will blow over the edge all we
Carefully stowed, or in mire-hole sink beyond

Resurrection. Pack only what we’re needing and
Hope chest bear for when we homestead arrive, and there’s
Cause for remembering what of our ancestors
At table before us spread, to remember theirs.

And do not expect what we do not earn, and thank
Always for what is given us. And do not waste
What tomorrow we may need, or blind to another’s
Need, in grace and privilege, we may choose to freely

Give. Sharpen our axes, oil our guns, for they are
Tools, like the hammer, nail, stool, hand, and milking pail,
Lamp, wick, candle, planed-off plank and any good book,
Needle, thread, spindle, spool, crank, flume and headgate wheel,

Self-defense a right, but never to pick a fight
Or intimidate or disregard innocents
Or refuse to forgive or ask for forgiveness.
Insist that conscience begins in living it, string

String, every string, so every string plays of future
Well-being. How the red wing blackbird morning sings
And barn owl hunts the fluttering evening, cherish
Every creature for that creature’s form of speaking

And every intonation and form of being.
And when we borrow another person’s strength or
Natural feature, honor and repay, in how we
Transforming live and love and better pass on through.

I’VE SEEN THE MOUNTAINS FALLING

I’ve seen the mountains falling,
heard the mighty canyons ring
with Colorado thunder
and clear blue mountain streams,
I’ve seen the nights grow brighter
and the days just shine in gold,
been looking for El Dorado
in the mountain of my dreams.

I hear the eagles calling,
see torches in the sky,
went off to Colorado,
had a gleaming in my eye,
there I found my measure
was a bird upon the wing
and the mountains’ greatest treasure
is the way the aspen sing.

I guess you might get crazy
thinking you’re going to die,
you drive your body pounding,
waste beauty on your way,
you turn your only fortune
into gambling your life away,
when El Dorado’s being
on a Colorado Day.

I wish I’d seen the world,
been a woman and a man,
felt the grip of dry starvation
and sailed the Rio Grande,
I’d be a farmer mountaineer,
write a book about the mind,
but lay me down a fossil
in Colorado land.

Energy Policy

On the first day the Lord the God
created an energy policy, he created
the sun, the wind, and the waters.
On the sixth day he created man,
during the eons in between, the earth
the formless wasteland he had parted
from the heavens took shape, plants
and creatures coming and going stored
in faults and aquifers the sun they had
borrowed, and the wind blew constantly.

When appeared the men and the women,
they inhabited the arc of the sun by day,
and struck by night, from rock and tinder,
holy fire to cook and light and warm
whatever hours fell between, and the
wind blew constantly. From the spark
the intellect he had given them, the men
and the women forged wondrous implements
for converting the insurance stored in the earth
into power and particles, and they began to
Turn their habitations away from the sun,
and the new gods on the sixth day
said, “It is good!” And the wind
blew constantly.

LEWIS AND IVES

A River always bends its course against the confident.

Said the President, “Your mission is single, the direct water communication from sea to sea formed by the Missouri.”

Lewis holding forth on foot
crossed the Bitter Roots.

And Lieutenant Ives,
who from tide to source would power
up the Colorado,

Foundered on a rock,
his steamer split apart.
“Ours has been the first, and will
Doubtless be the last to visit
This profitless locality.”

Just up the pike
Las Vegas lights.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A DUCK

A duck don’t know the difference
between jurisdictional waters
and a pothole, if there’s water
he’ll land. Sometimes the law
don’t know the difference
between a duck.

ALTOIDS

At the Board of Governors meeting
A first grade substitute teacher
Whose husband had become mentally
Ill and abusive—and being able to pay
Nothing was frightened to the verge
Of paralysis about losing her son—
They were living in a safe house—
Pointed to the houseplant she had
Brought to the meeting, saying
“Like this plant I am alive and free
Today because this lawyer saved
My life. He took my case.” She cried
Mightily, asking for tissue before
Continuing. “I told him I could pay
Nothing. He just looked at me sternly,
Saying, ‘Well, then, you’ll just have
To keep me supplied with Altoids!’”
At that, in front of sixty-five lawyers
And judges assembled, she handed
Him a small metal box of Altoids
And the houseplant.

ONE BODY, ONE SPIRIT, MANY FUTURES

Those who came before—yes,
they are with us still.
We know them by their names:
Need, Confiict, Confusion, Good
Will. They made—as best they could—
a compact, a basic apportionment,
based on the lay of the land
and the need of the people.
The idea is this: fifty-fifty,
the upper, the lower, head-to-toe,
joined at the gut and the hip—
mountains, the great Grand Canyon,
the vast Southwest—always
the River at the heart of all
possibility. And, so, we go
one body, one spirit, many futures.

Code of Passing Through People, I've Seen the Mountains Falling, and Lewis and Ives, are published in "In Praise of Fair Colorado: The Practice of Poetry, History, and Judging"

Altoids was included in a presentation by Greg Hobbs' group, Doyle Inn of Court.

"In Praise of Fair Colorado" can be ordered from Bradford Publishing Company (www.bradfordpublishing.com) or through Tattered Cover Book Store (www.tatteredcover.com)