"Today we made a winter trip
Up the canyon, Gottfried.
No, not for wood,
No team, no sled,
Lone-horse, or wagon,
But on foot--
Skis,
A pleasure trip,
And I leading,
My daughters behind,
Much like you.

"But without wolves--
Only dogs--
And each with an owner,
And more like a park
With a pathway
Than the winter
Wilderness that you knew.
Only the edges
Were wild and lonely;
The Heavens
Lowering with storm.

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

"Different now,
In town, built-on-to
With white siding
And a privacy fence.
Amazingly, open land
Still runs behind it,
Back and upward
To the canal,
With lonely fruit trees,
Yours? up the ditch
Along the north side.

"And yes, I told them all--
Five generations and
A hundred-ten years down--
As you relayed it to me
Solemnly, bleakly,
From the Edge
That was your life,
Far from the Alps,
Here in the dry
Religious West, far,
Far from the other Wolves."

12/08/2001

Author's Note: Thoughts of Great-grandfather Gottfried Weyermann

Posted on 12/08/2001
Copyright © 2024 Leonard M Hawkes