Poems:
| Big Bend |
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| Beauty and the Beast |
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| Mystery Clown |
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| Courage |
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| A Summer Memory |
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| When Did the Killing Begin? |
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| My Little Cabin |
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| Robert Service |
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More poems:
A poet I know once said
that winter is a book,
its pages are the endless snows,
and inside those pages are tracks,
tracks that are the stories.
In my wanderings
I have found these stories
written in the snow:
dramas about struggle,
survival,
life and death.
I once came upon
the small tracks of a rodent,
perhaps a squirrel,
that stopped abruptly
in the middle of a clearing;
and at that spot in the snow
on each side of the tracks,
were the clear indentations of wings
from a large bird
that had swooped down
to grab its prey.
I once walked into a clearing
that was beaten down
with moose and wolf tracks,
large chunks of moose hair scattered about,
but there was no blood,
so I think the moose
survived the battle…
a battle in the snow
recorded as clearly
as if it had been written
in a journal…
and in my winter journeys
about the land
I have also left stories
to fill the pages
of the Book of Winter.
Even the rocks which seem to be dumb and dead as they swelter in the sun along the silent shore, thrill with memories of stirring events connected with my people.
- Chief Seattle
Survivors of the storm,
my children’s sand castles
guard the lake shore
against age-old enemies:
fear, uncertainty, malaise.
A day ago the air sang
with their voices…
voices of sand shapers,
dream scapers,
voices of builders,
sculptors who slowed time
for one whose
time
sifts
through
cupped
hands.
Absent their creators,
the fortresses repose
quietly in the sun,
defying all dangers,
alive for today,
tomorrow’s storms;
constructions held together
by grains of memory.
The cold waits
outside layers
of long underwear,
wind pants,
two sleeping bags,
tent walls.
It waits to make me
a feature of the land,
to harden me
like river ice.
I burrow deeper
into claustrophobia,
stale breath,
listening to a heart pumping life,
breathing and listening
through the 16-hour night,
defying the harbinger
that waits
to steal my breath,
still the heart,
stop the flowing
in my veins.
I fade into tomorrow’s light
and force myself
into another day
of cold that crushes
like an eagle’s talons,
forges flesh
into crystal,
unravels thought.
I huddle by the fire,
break camp,
warm by the fire,
rig the sled,
warm again,
hookup,
warm again,
ski away.
It is on the trail,
between the trees,
beneath the frozen river,
all around,
watching,
waiting.
Part of it slides down my back
as I ski out of the valley.
It doesn’t want to let me go.
I cannot let it see me shiver.
Dave J. Gahm – July 27, 1957–Sept. 21, 2008
These trails we’ve walked
and mountains we’ve climbed
haunt me
now that you are gone.
I could not imagine
venturing to these places
without you at my side…
…dozens of campfires,
long conversations
morning ‘til night;
jokes about some guy
headed into a sheep hunt
wearing tennis shoes;
the determined look in your eye
when scanning ahead
for a better route,
the way you relaxed
on a grassy mountain slope,
having some lunch,
eyes fixed on other horizons.
Often when we reached
our destinations—
a remote, alpine lake,
a grassy green tarn,
a rocky summit,
I had the feeling
you were already there,
waiting for me.
You are no longer here,
but in my mind
you will remain with me
on every trip I make,
for the rest of my days.
A camp fire
flickers softly
like moth wings
across miles of lonely,
snow-silenced night,
asking questions.
Who are the fire makers?
Are they huddled
around their warm creation,
peering with blinded eyes
into the darkness,
wondering what
they can’t see?
Or are they asleep
in another world
as firelight shadows frolic
on tent walls?
From their distant shore
can they see my fire?
Are they reading its messages?
Things can go wrong
on the trail
and the weather
can turn bad,
but a camp with a fire,
its smoke hanging
in the trees,
clinging like us
to what it remembers,
says everything
is all right.
We can’t hear
trees growing,
the footfalls of sparrows,
owls diving
on unsuspecting mice,
dandelion and fireweed seeds
parachuting into fields,
spruce needles
rolling across the ground,
snowflakes colliding
on their freefall to earth,
clouds ramming into
mountain tops,
meteors blazing
across the night sky…
…but something wants us
to listen.
“Sailors on a becalmed sea, we sense a stirring of a breeze.”
-Carl Sagan
From mountain tops
in late afternoon
I’ve watched them wheel and soar,
riding the ridge thermals
on their way to secret nests
deep in the valleys,
troupes of avian dancers
in an aerial ballet,
winging mirthful pirouettes
across a stage
of silent blue,
teasing hawks and eagles
with deft maneuvers,
banking, diving
like untethered kites.
I cannot fly
like the ravens,
so I climb high
and wait for them,
and when they spiral past
my heart beats the rhythm
of their wings,
my earthly bond is broken,
my spirit sings.
The land’s face changes
in half-century spans,
green invading the rocky moraine
left by melting glaciers.
During America’s Great Depression,
World War II,
atomic explosions over
Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
Korea and Vietnam wars,
the conquest of Everest,
first man on the moon,
9-11,
this lake has remained
much the same…
in summer
bordered by grassy slopes,
glacier-carved mountains,
and for a few weeks every year,
a few flowers to sweeten the air;
in winter,
a flat, smooth space
within an endless expanse
of snowy whiteness.
If somehow, one by one,
every person on earth
could sit by this lake
for a few silent moments,
as I sit here now,
would we begin to move
toward world peace?
On the winter solstice
we stretch toward the light,
shuffling up the mountainside
through sand-dry snow
in a race to catch the mid-day sun.
In these northern latitudes,
the sun suspended
a few degrees above the horizon,
our pace is not quick enough
for the earth’s turning;
as alpenglow retreats upward
like a frightened animal,
beyond our reach.
In our younger days
we would have thought it folly
to spend an afternoon
pursuing the sun;
but on this cold December day,
it felt like the best way
to warm the heart
and chase away
the weariness
of a winter mind.
I climb to that granite loft
gulping thin rock air,
air rushing everywhere,
glacier to glacier,
valley to valley;
playing like an errant child
on a fenceless playground.
Scented updrafts ebb and flow,
eddying between cliffs and gullies;
fledgling winds collide with rocks
of another millennium,
freeing themselves
on their upward dash.
But here, at the summit,
losing ramp,
the winds tug my sleeve
before sighing into space,
joining the higher, voiceless winds
that shove clouds to unknown destinations,
winds that have nothing more on earth
to touch.
