Aside from influencing my love
of poetry, my Granddad Wood was a major influence on my character development.
I am who I am in large part to his example and values. In the late 1940’s he
moved his family from southern Idaho to Stevens County in Washington State
where he bought the largest pile of rocks that he could find for sale. His farm
was on the east side of the Columbia River with a large mountain of exposed
rock cliffs as a backdrop. To this day I cannot see that mountain without
feeling somehow strengthened. The following was written as a tribute to my
grandfather.
Tribute to the Mountain
I seek the mountain’s
anchored stone;
Where battered, bruised,
conflicted, weak,
I find the refuge which
I seek.
Amidst the cliffs of
sharp-edged truth,
The cradle; safety of my
youth,
Beside that shadow
blanket’s dome,
The only house I knew as
home.
Though it may fall to
termite, fire,
It’s granite standards
did inspire
A choice which memories
refresh,
As worms consume that
anchor flesh,
Which molders now in
grave alone,
Yet marked me more than
mountain stone.
©2000 William L. Steen
No comments:
Post a Comment