AT THE GREAT DIVIDE
Fifty summers now, wanting fifty more,
half a century of life in his recorded history,
he rides alone with a half cup of warm beer
in the middle of July on a gondola
looking down over a dusty ski run,
no longer able to brag he has no fear of dying,
still aching for more thrill than earth can yield,
still quick to mock the lucky and the smug
daring to prove them wrong
Within his panoramic view the whole world
spreads between bald peaks:
a land barren of Indian tribes and buffalo,
flocks of birds once in the millions,
remnants of Spanish invaders, ruts of wagon trains;
before him horizons filling with strange forms
that soon will make his ideas obsolete and forgotten
Now that each day will be a found arrowhead,
a doubloon shining behind a stone,
deadly spiders and snakes hidden in the sage,
he stands outstretching his arms into wings
and watches his shadow swoop in silhouette
across the Continental Divide