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Green Canyon

by Leonard M Hawkes

"We made a winter trip
Up the canyon today,
Gottfried. No,
Not for wood,
No team, no sled
Or wagon--
On foot--skis,
A pleasure trip.
I leading,
My daughter behind,
Much like your story.

"But no wolves,
Only dogs, and
Each with an owner,
And more like a park
With a pathway, really,
Than the winter
Wilderness it was.
Only the edges
Were lonely and cold;
The Heavens lowering
With storm.

"Yes, it was from those
Edges that you spoke.
Metaphysically or from
Memory? I don't know,
But you were there,
Grandma Anna, too, and
The load of stunted maple
For the winter stove.
And we followed you
Down the canyon
To the old house. . .

"It's different now,
Larger, built-on-to
With clean white siding
And a large front fence.
Surprisingly, there's still
Open land out behind it,
Eastward running backward
To the canal, and a few
Straggling fruit trees
(Old enough for yours?)
Along the fence.

"And I told her all,
(Five generations and
A hundred-ten years down)
As you relayed it coldly
And clearly to me--
From the Edge
That was your life,
Far from the Alp-lands,
Here in the dry religious
West, far, far from
The other Wolves."

12/01/2001

Author's Note: To Great-Grandfather Gottfried Weyermann

Posted on 12/01/2001
Copyright © 2024 Leonard M Hawkes

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