Veryl Goodnight - Cheyenne Frontier Days Museum - Cheyenne, WY
Posted by: 
Outspoken1
N 41° 09.450 W 104° 50.029
13T E 513942 N 4556254
This life-size piece reflects the commitment the settlers made when they decided to homestead in the American west.
Waymark Code: WMN2T2
Location: Wyoming, United States
Date Posted: 12/14/2014
Views: 3
From the sculptor and author, Veryl Goodnight:
"No Turning back is without a doubt one of my most significant works. It seems to be timeless in that it has been reproduced on the cover of a CD album in which a song was composed from the accompanying poem I wrote. Arizona Highways used an image of the sculpture on the cover of a book titled "Stalwart Women".
Every major western art magazine has used an image of "No turning Back", and it was featured in "Sculptors of the Rockies", a book produced by Southwest Art magazine in 2009. The life-size version of "No Turning Back" is now on the cover of a book on my work of the same name.
No Turning Back
Too young and naive
to think they could fail
Too full of visions
for the end of the trail
They stored their silk dresses
and donned calico
To join in the cry
of Westward Ho
Their diaries tell
of the endless hours
The vast sea of grass
and bounty of wildflowers
They tell of children
conceived and born
And of those who were buried
in the gray silent morn
Still the wagons rolled on
and the ruts got deeper
The column moved westward
as the route got steeper
Teams dropped from exhaustion
in the summer heat
As the emigrants pressed on
defying defeat
They met Indians who were friends
and many that were foe
They saw days of drought
and blinding snow
Only one thing was certain
along this wagon track
There was absolutely
No Turning Back
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Too bad for the indigenous peoples who could not understand that there was an unlimited supply of settlers who felt entitled to land that had been the home for the people already living there.