Rhyme and Reminiscence - by George D. Stout

[Terry_Green]

Rhyme and Reminiscence

by George D. Stout


The mist is rising from the fields that parallel the hickory grove,

as multi-flora sends it runners through the leaves to sink and hove;

To bring new life of thorny claws where yellowthroat’s will build their nest,

while autumn olive’s fingered fronds reflect clouds moving from the west.


I walk the game land’s cultured trail in search of nature’s pure delights,

to saturate my senses with her wondrous scents and glorious sights.

The chestnut trees are blossoming, the maples send their flyers down,

to propagate a legacy within leaf litter shreds and ground.


My thoughts avail me to a time more innocent yet hard and hale,

before the white man found this place, when it was just an Indian trail.

I see encampments, campfires lit with children dancing round the skins,

of buffalo and elk skin teepees sheltering the lives within.


Their little rabbit moccasins stir up a dust storm as they dance,

they practice hunting like their fathers hoping for a future chance;

To be a hunter brave and strong, to bend a bow and stalk the deer,

to help extend the tribal ways to be accepted as a peer.


I sit and listen to the sounds my longbow stands a measure of,

the atavistic way of life that I have come so much to love.

I hear the whispers on the air, I feel the closeness of the pack,

I sense the growling of the wolf that brings a shiver to my back.


My nose picks up a salient scent of wapiti that keep the vale,

and glimpse a movement in the trees of tawny hide and short cropped tail.

A rump patch shows then fades away like ghosts within a sheltered land,

their images burned in my mind like age spots on an old man’s hand.


Above the ridge an eagle soars in search of morsels for her chick,

her graceful flight belies impending death to those who are not quick

enough to feign and stay the time when they become the nourishment,

that procreates another life to populate the firmament.


 

Yet life today is far removed we have no fear of wolf or bear,

our goals are fiercely hardened to just getting round to here and there.

And reminiscence such as this can keep us honest in this time,

when innocence still can be found in stanzas penned within a rhyme.