poems for you

 Hi,

 I'm back to blogging. I hope you missed me a little. I have three poems about my western vacation and one about a snow day here in good old PA. Hope you like them.  I like the Silverton Colorado one the best.

Autumn in Nevada

The first breeze of fall

flows over the Sangre

de Christos down I-

15 to Mesquite.

Across mesas past

red rock or blonde or

gray, needle towers,

frozen lava or

eroded hillsides

fall arrives. Pumpkins

hay bales and scarecrows

and proves to me that

Pennsylvania has

no monopoly.

Visiting Arches

Glossy black raven

gives the beady eye

as, cameras handy

we set out to  

capture delicate

arches, stripped red

and bleached blond

in clear evening light.

Fat nosy raven

hops to side mirror

inspects the open car.

What treats have we left?

You give chase. I take

pictures. Raven flaps

to drivers side, just

stares as you scold, then

lazy, floats away.

Silverton

 I bought this ring

In Silverton,

or rather, Roger bought

it for me

both of us

captured

by the jeweler

who said, the ring was

vintage pawned Indian

jewelry

the jeweler who said

the ring was

an Indian cut, the four

stones notched in

the four directions

the jeweler who

 didn’t know

we like things

with histories

we bring home stories

and this ring tells us

Silverton was

real not just some

Rocky Mountain

Brigadoon

But a real place

where all three streets 

of weathered clapboard houses

nestle in the skirts 

  

Of the eternal mountains.

Mountains who tolerate

little towns but stare over

their heads

north to the Dakotas  

South to Taos

Mountains dreaming of the end

and remembering the

beginning of the world

In Silverton that one afternoon

 we chat with shop keepers

and Canadians on tour like us

 We ride back to Durango

on the steam train

a long, cold, breathtaking,

along a galloping river,

through mountain passes

lit by aspens turned gold.

And the jeweler didn’t know

That this all comes back

When I wear that ring

And I can smell the wood smoke

In the autumn air

And hear my own feet

Shuffling along a Silverton

Side walk made of boards.  

Snow Day

Out on the deck

the green plastic chairs

wear white cushions

of fresh snow

matching the deep white

carpet dumped there last night.

Squirrels and chickadees, nuthatches

and junkos haven’t graffitied the railing

and the wind is hushed.

Down in the ravine behind the house

Leggett’s Creek is quiet, most water

out back is dressed in white

The maple tree that reaches

the deck now is trimmed in

ermine just as showy its

all green summer wear or

the flamboyant yellow

 it flaunts for fall.

The forty foot white pine

hasn’t shaken its white wrapper.

All is as still as a stage set.

It’s a Robert Frost kind of day

but I don’t have a horse

or miles to go before I sleep

My work for today is

to turn from the sliding glass

door back to the kitchen table

resume the novel I’m reading

and drink another cup

of steamy black coffee.

What I Learned From My Cowboy Boots

What I Learned From My Cowboy Boots

My cowboy boots are too tight. The cowboy who sold them to me in the boot store said they would loosen up after while. I believed him. After all he looked like a cowboy. He spoke with authority. He was young and cute. 

So I believed him. I am glad God looks out for me because I think I would be terminally naïve if it wasn’t for Him. He gave me “horse sense,” after all. 

My cowboy boots are beautiful. I have wanted them since I was 13. Since I got Silver. I had beautiful boots once but they were stolen at the Clarion Co. fair because I left them out instead of putting them in my mother's car. (naïve of me, huh?)

Fifteen years ago when we were in New Mexico I wanted boots, but I had no opportunity to buy them. Then, this year, I got to visit the kids in Lubbock Texas. I thought, “I’m getting the boots.”  The Bank of Roger authorized my purchase.

We took Wonderful Jen and Dave with me to the store. I counted on Jen to tell me why I shouldn’t buy the boots. She is much more sensible than I am and has taught me a lot about buying things. So I trusted her.

But I waited forty years to own boots. 

 Now I faced a decision. Good boots are costly. How much would I wear them? Did I need to spend $XXX on boots or would $XXX do? Finally I found some on sale. Now I own cowboy boots.

I wanted to sleep in them, to put them under my pillow that night. I did take them out of the box and kiss them on the way home.  Jen, in the front seat, thought i gave Roger a kiss to thank him. First things first.

They are too tight. Right now, but I know I could “ride ‘em and rope ‘em” if I only owned a rope and a buckskin Quarter Horse. And if my boots loosen up a little. So I can actually walk.

What I Learned --Grand Canyon 3

What I Learned Traveling to the Grand Canyon 3

I miss my bed. 

I sleep in a bed every night. In what I call a Roger hotel.  He finds them under his price point and they have to have a free breakfast. I want them with a pool. So we pull into a town and crusie around and pick a motel.  

Then comes the crucial test. How does it smell?  I have no idea if smell has anything to do with cleanliness. But in my head it does. We’ve had a couple non-smoking rooms that had a whiff of smoke in them. Like maybe they cleaned the wall paper instead of removing when the room went from smoking to non-smoking.

We had one room that smelled like old ladies. We opened the door and window and turned on the air conditioner to air it out.   

I tell myself that I will only be there one night and I pray for God to protect me (from bedbugs, etc.) and I go to sleep. 

BUT 

I miss my bed. I miss the Leslee-shaped groove I sleep in, and wake in, and walk around in everyday.

New is getting old.  

Then I think, “Wait a minute! You’re driving all over the southwest in a convertible! With one of your favorite people! He doesn’t grumble about the tenth bathroom stop. He’ll make latte stops and he doesn’t even drink coffee!”

Then I get in the convertible and off we go. I think, “The fresh air blows off the old lady smell. The Grand Canyon is coming up. I’ve wanted to do this since I was 13.”  

And the next night when we find a Roger motel, I just grin. There’ll be hot water for a shower and maybe even a nice pool. 

What I Learned--Grand canyon 2

What I Learned Traveling to the Grand Canyon #2

I learned that I am so much an easterner. 

We drove along this little twisting road through a state park in Utah. It was beautiful country with huge rock formations and blue, blue sky. 

Roger slowed as we rounded one more snaky corner.  We came upon an accident in the opposite lane. People were around the car that had gone off the road and run into the rock wall just off the road’s shoulder. We drove on because others had stopped. We decided to call 911. 

Only there was no cell phone reception.

We drove 12 miles before we came to the first place we could call for help. It was a ranger station at a camp ground. We called 911 from there.  Nobody had called the accident in yet. 

If the accident had been on interstate 80 or 81 the roads I know and we had waited 12 miles to call it in, the police would have already been on the scene. 

I had no idea how different one part of the USA was from another. 

We talked to a young man who took care of his sick grandfather and moved to a different town so his grandpa could get to a hospital if he needed to go there. There was is no hospital in Silverton, Colorado. And the road can get snowed closed in the winter.   

He couldn’t just go to the urgent care walk-in, or the grocery store.

We heard a pastor talk about an accident where a couple guys in pickup trucks had first aid equipment and flares to help out.

  

I really admire the scenery out here.  And the people? They are pretty amazing.

Just like at home.