Marilyn’s Sunday Morning

I got up very early and thought that I would write

Of this November dawning while it still was dark as night.

I sat quietly in my leather chair with Sammy at my feet

And Jack, our Weimaraner, looking to me for a treat.

With my journal in my lap and pen gently tapping at my chin

I gazed out of my window and felt gentle darkness peeping in.

A peaceful reverie ensued, my pen dropped to my journal

Jack settled down upon the rug as my mind played with thoughts, eternal.

When next I glanced about me the darkness had turned gray,

And I started thinking strongly of a brisk ride to start my day.

With a last sweep of my pen I finished my latest entry.

Jack ran to the pantry door and stood there like a sentry.

I soon passed out the doggy treats sought by Sam and Jack

Then grabbed Indy and me a bite to eat and left, not looking back.

My horse, Indy, heard me coming and nickered his delight,

Reaching for his carrots as though he had waited for them all night.

A quick brush down and saddle up amid some gentle talk,

Then I jumped into the stirrups and we launched upon our walk.

I looked up at the bright blue sky, smiling back clear as gin;

And felt myself in heaven, as I was riding out – again.

- Harlan E. Finnemore

Harlan E. Finnemore (a.k.a. Old Ug) is a retired engineer who dabbles in poetry while enjoying life in Salmon, Idaho.

Cynical Travel Poem, with Stereotypes

Let’s go to the Canadian wilderness

Paddle canoes across crystalline ripples

See Indians glare and set their traps

Avoid those earthen iron teeth

Watch your step, or else they’ll snap

Or, no, let’s go somewhere different today

How about the famed Oregon Coast?

Getting lost on Portland’s one-way streets

We’ll eat some crunchy Starbuck’s toast

Or see posh artists paint and boast

Okay, maybe not. We’ll try somewhere else

What do you say, somewhere sunny?

Let’s drop down to California’s bays

Watch plastic people soak up the rays

Then smoggy skies might darken the day

I don’t know, what do you think?

They’re all screaming with personality

Some are urban, some are abandoned

And summer time in one,

is like winter in another

So you choose, or I’ll choose the other

- Chantel Roice

Chantel Roice graduated from Journeys School in 2011. She is enrolled at Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, OR. Chantel is contemplating a major in English, yet her true love is fine arts.

I Am of the Mountains

I am of the mountains…

            and of the wind

Forged within the embrace

            of the skyward reaching arms

                        of Earth itself.

She is within me…and I am made whole

            in her hands…

She calls to me…and I come unto her

            to be taken in…

To be healed…she fills my

            hollow places

                        with her breath…

And I am saturated with newness…

Made known…known fully

            and revealed…even unto my self…

for I am of the mountains…

They know me…as I am fully known…

            they sing back to me the song

                        that echoes in my soul…

and I am remembered.

- Heidi Ramseur

Heidi Ramseur was born and raised in Jackson Hole, where she trained from a very young age to dance, sing, paint and write her little soul out.  A performing member of Contemporary Dance Wyoming, her passion for art, dance, and music fuels her desire to share with others the joy of creating.  

 

The Rider

A boy told me
if he roller-skated fast enough
his loneliness couldn’t catch up to him,

the best reason I ever heard
for trying to be a champion.

What I wonder tonight
pedaling hard down King William Street
is if it translates to bicycles.

A victory! To leave your loneliness
panting behind you on some street corner
while you float free into a cloud of sudden azaleas,
pink petals that have never felt loneliness,
no matter how slowly they fell.

- by Naomi Shihab Nye

Jackson was fortunate to enjoy a reading from the esteemed poet, Naomi Shihab Nye, on September 19 as part of the Wyoming Humanities Council’s “Civility Matters” project. Among her many honors, she was elected in 2010 to the Board of Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets.

Mountain Time

We are a mountain people,

Great lovers of land and time.

Of seldom trod peaks and valleys,

Of swift rivers under stone,

Of snow slowly freezing to ice.

We are a great tribe of many peoples,

Great lovers of trees and wind,

Of bear and marten, eagle and pika.

We mark our lives by the time of the mountain,

We live and die,

cherish and sorrow,

rise and fall

we become our truest selves,

all on the mountains’ time.

Oh! To be in the moment, to feel the now of hard stone and to breathe the bluest sky-

That is why, we are mountain people,

Living our lives by the mountains’ time.

- Tenley Thompson Bowen

Tenley Thompson Bowen is a wildlife guide and photographer from Jackson, Wyoming.

 

In the Silence

In the silence the marbled moon

Rests blue on the saw tooth silhouette of black pines

Strung along the ridge and diffuses silvered translucence

Across rocky terrain pocked with scattered drifts and clumps of snow.

 Muffled thumping from cloven hooves striking frozen ground interrupts.

I stand, listening in the burning chill of a rising wind,

Straining to discern something recognizable among darkly shadowed trees.

A puff of hot breathe mists in the frigid air at park’s edge.

Indistinct shapes scramble through gray and black lodgepoles,

Becoming a dozen elk, closely bunched, steaming heat. 

They abruptly halt.  One coughs.  Then, another.  

The lead cow, ears forward, listens.

 I can barely see her head turn toward me

When shrill yelps and clipped howls erupt ,

Shattering the calm in a scattered, eerie chorus.

The old cow lunges down slope, leading her throng deeper into the night.

- Terry Roice 

Terry Roice is the Language Arts teacher at Summit High School, where he helps students host various poetry slams and events throughout the year.

 

Running at Night

We ran until our lungs gave out

Yelling at the top of our lungs like sirens passing each other in the field.

Laughing at ourselves and the joy of being irreverent 

And then it hit me

Later

In the quiet cold of a lonely bed 

That I needed to just keep running

And yelling

That I had so much to get out 

That I needed to wail, sob, fall over exhausted and then still utter more

Moaning into the earth and heaving prayers up to the sky

Keeping time with the waves of emotion rolling up from within 

The recognition of my truest self

Of loneliness

Of the soft underbelly of being that never gets exposed

Of the most desperate needing and longing for love and acceptance

- Hatton Littman 

Hatton Littman is a film & video teacher, independent filmmaker, writer, and private tutor in Big Sky, Montana.