AN OLD MEMORY

For lack of a topic for this post, I found this tidbit which I had jotted down years ago. So I m going to print it just as I wrote it then.



It is an unfinished poem I was composing as I drove the car on a trip and Bill tried to write it down. I know words are missing and we haven't refined it or got it right, but I have been carrying it in my purse for so long on an old envelope that I did copy it down to preserve it for future work.

It is about the time we were in Estes Park, Colorado and just as we were leaving I saw a car stoppd by the side of the road. I looked and a glorious herd of elk were coming down from the woods into the town. I didn't have a camera. Many more people stopped and took pictures. I almost gave one of them some money and my address and asked them to send me a shot of the scene, but I never did and have regretted it ever since.

Apparently it is quite common for there is a preserve nearby and I understand it occurs every rutting season. One lady told me in the grocery store that the elk had gathered outside their church one Sunday and they were bugeling so loudly they had to cancel the service.

That day also I saw my first white Mountain Goat high up on a sort of shelf as we went by. He stood out in the sunshine like a white god and I was thrilled at the sight of him. It was a miraculous day.

Here is my description of the Elks:

And there they emerged from the wood

Materializing where before there had been nothing.

Yet the wild things were surely and slowly

Softly picking their way down the hill

God's gorgeous four-legged creatures.

But wait! Here comes their King! Who with every movement displays

Royalty and the mantle of command;

His rack is large and has many branches

His head heavy with its weight.

No matter he is old and infirm

Deference and honor belong to him

And he knows it and glories in it

Because he knows that his strength

Lies in past victories of wars won.

This is all she wrote folks. Can you see what I saw that day?