It comes with the spring
Like the blossoms
That cover the apricot tree-
Grandma's tree
That was almost pulled
As a weed--
And it lingers
And it gnaws within me
Until I finally go

West,
To Promontory.

For they call me--
Those bleak hills,
The dry Ravines,
The worn and painted rocks,
And the spirits that haunt them,
The silent ones who came before,
The mountainmen,
My fathers
And clearly those who carved that road
That gives her fame.

And comfortably I ride
And see their work,
The grades,
The fills,
The broken gaps,
All that entails their route;
And I perceive Them, know them
As clearly as I know He
Who made the hills, or
She who planted the tree.

And knowing them,
I know the Who and Where of me.

And satisfied,
I treck liesurly eastward
To my own hills,
To relish the scent of
The blossoms,
And to savor the fruit
Thereafter.

04/26/1993

Author's Note: Contest Poem--Golden Spike

Posted on 04/22/2009
Copyright © 2024 Leonard M Hawkes