History has taught me to keep trying to solve our problems; we will never be without them.
Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor
Problems develop constantly and some go unsolved, just ignored. I couldn't help but think about a letter to the editor yesterday written from Williston. The gist of it was "the good people" in that community can hardly cope with the oil boom. The writer said about 1,200 of them have left. It wasn't long ago that the state relished the coming of new money and jobs created. Now the negative side of it all begins showing up. This boom might just last and forever change the character of the state and its residents.
I can't complain much about the problems I have. I eat pretty good, live in a decent house in a nice neighborhood. One of my biggest problems I think about now is how to finish this darn poem:
Upon opening that book
a scrap of paper fell out
on which I'd written the line
of an unfinished poem:
"The first time I saw those elk
wintering at the bottom
of the Grand Teton Mountains
I almost hit a bull moose
cantering along the road
east of Dubois, Wyoming."
That line, forty some years old,
illuminates memories
resting just below the lip
of the horizon where dusk
turns to dark.
This old, scarred desk
creaks as I rest my elbows
and think of more lines to add.
Maybe I should write of French
trappers starved for women who
saw those mountains and thought they
looked like big tits, or hunting
elk in the Wind River Range
discovering at day's end
my rifle had no front sight...
Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor
Problems develop constantly and some go unsolved, just ignored. I couldn't help but think about a letter to the editor yesterday written from Williston. The gist of it was "the good people" in that community can hardly cope with the oil boom. The writer said about 1,200 of them have left. It wasn't long ago that the state relished the coming of new money and jobs created. Now the negative side of it all begins showing up. This boom might just last and forever change the character of the state and its residents.
I can't complain much about the problems I have. I eat pretty good, live in a decent house in a nice neighborhood. One of my biggest problems I think about now is how to finish this darn poem:
Upon opening that book
a scrap of paper fell out
on which I'd written the line
of an unfinished poem:
"The first time I saw those elk
wintering at the bottom
of the Grand Teton Mountains
I almost hit a bull moose
cantering along the road
east of Dubois, Wyoming."
That line, forty some years old,
illuminates memories
resting just below the lip
of the horizon where dusk
turns to dark.
This old, scarred desk
creaks as I rest my elbows
and think of more lines to add.
Maybe I should write of French
trappers starved for women who
saw those mountains and thought they
looked like big tits, or hunting
elk in the Wind River Range
discovering at day's end
my rifle had no front sight...
