Dreams of a Kitten by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Dreams of a Kitten

Page 619

I took my sons and mothered them, but fear had left its shadow,

It seems they grew the farther on we went in Colorado,

For the land rose up, and it stood on end,

With a crown on top, cold and white,

And the days were made of ridin,' and a-slippin,' and a slidin,'

And my boys wouldn't hide their fright,

I would wake up in the night and hear them crying in their

sleep,

And I'd weep ...

But they never knew, and somehow,

We got through

From Utah to Nevada, it was easy all the way,

We left behind that shadow, and it faded day by day,

For the sweet winds heralded a laughing tune,

The wagon wheels rumbled, "We'll get there soon,"

And the ground all around, thundered that strange, rolling

sound,

Ponderosa, Ponderosa !

Virginia City ! Boomtown ! Brash, Bold town,

Wired, Silver and Gold town,

Where I worked, and I jumbled, and I watched my fortune grow,

Till disaster dealt a hand I couldn't play

Big Joe Collins was a friend, and my life woulda' ended,

But he saved it at a cost of his own,

And his wife was alone, far away from the West,

And I couldn't refuse his last request,

I made the sad and weary trip, and told her how he died,

And from the day I saw her tears, I couldn't leave her side,

And the months flew by, like so many startled birds,

We both seemed to know without uttering the words,

And my friend would have wanted it so,

And I brought her west, and she became lovely as a mother,

So she gave my boys a brother, and we called him Little Joe

Well, it was time to find my land, and to build a dream I'd

planned,

So I started off alone, and the wind led on me to a valley rich

as Eden,

Where the trees were like a pillar for a temple,

With a wide, blue dome, and, all at once, I knew...

This place was home.

I asked an old trapper what kind of trees they were,

But he went right on draggin' in his line,

Then he raised his ancient head, and I shivered when he said,