Don's Blog When We Sold the Tent 1-14-22

One of the disappointments of my life was when my bride (of decades) said, "I'm not getting on 

my knees to get into that tent again." Here is another look at that watershed moment.

When We Sold the Tent

When we sold the tent

we threw in the Grand Canyon

with its shawl of pines,

lap full of cones and chipmunks

and crooked seams of river.

We let them have the

parched white moonscapes of Utah,

and Colorado's

magnificat of flowers

sunbursting hill after hill.

Long gentle stretches

of Wyoming, rain outside

some sad Idaho

town where the children, giddy

with strange places, clowned all night.

Eyes like small veiled moons

circling our single light, sleek

shadows with pawprints,

all went with the outfit; and

youth, a river of campfires. 

 

 Rhina P. Espaillat from Playing at Stillness.

 © Truman State University Press.