I AM NOT MOUNTAIN -BORN
I did not love these mountains---not at first---
For I am prairie-born. Like prison-walls
Set stone on stone, they barred the western sun
And brought chill shadows in mid-afternoon.
All my eager youth had claimed with joy
Was but a memory stretched taut across
The rusty plains to where the urbane sun
Sank graciously to rest in crimson fire ;
Where nights were hot and good for tasseling corn ;
Where sleepy rivers sucked incessantly
At grass-roots on low banks, and smug black bass
Nibbled fat earthworms to make the bobbing cork
Go under ; where patchwork fields of yellow wheat
Were primly stitched to pasture lands and strips
Of poised clover, tied close with big red barns.
I am not mountain-born, I was not fed
On epic tales of wild empires ; my forebears
Did not strike pay dirt in "Dead Man's Gulch"
Nor tap a silver vein on Fryer's Hill ;
Such deeds are not my rightful heritage.
The storied past is theirs who helped to make it,
On their legacy, perhaps, to sons and daughters---
Heroic themes, at secondhand, are musty
At the best and make but slender singing.
But, as the master-poet once observed :
"There's something strikes a balance, no doubt."
If I had been indigenous I might
Have written more, or less, perhaps . . .
Blinded by pride of gold and gay romance,
I might have taken tragedies of dust
For granted. I saw with eyes unprejudiced
And sensed the agony of thirst-parched plains,
The heartsick longing for a tree, and rain ;
The madness of a fleeing tumbleweed.
To my foster-state I have surrendered utterly.
Like twisted tree at timberline I cling
To alien soil with fierce possessive passion.
Still, I do not sing of mountains very much ;
The shock of mountains to one prairie-born
Is far too violent for rhapsody---
Fit pa en of sublimity is silence.
At long last I shall sleep where white-coifed peaks,
Lie like a sculptured dream athwart the sky---
Ave, Colorado !
No native singer loves you more than I.
--Nellie Burget Miller
The Sun Drops Red
Collected Poems of Nellie Burget Miller
Poet Laureate of Colorado
Sage Books, Inc.
Denver, 1947
OUR TRIP PHOTOGRAPHS
I love it when they get together !
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