David Evans

Gratitude moving along uphill and downhillwith uphill and downhill thoughtsswinging wildly from branch to branchin my head, suddenly I was smiling andwaving at a man in a white pickupsmiling and waving at me, for whichI was grateful, having greeted—unthinkingly at that!—my next-doorneighbor on his way to work. David Allan Evans, an English professor for many years at South Dakota State University, is the author of nine collections of poems. He has been South Dakota's poet laureate since 2002.