Gold Rush
The arroyo was dry, as the last rains
Were several years gone by
The mountain plane
Was a rolling restless thing
A dry recompense
Dust whirled around stolid rock witnesses
Of eons and eons and beyond
Sky wide, eagles high, and prairie dogs low
Indians all around
The horizon touched the plain
With its gathered mountains, hulked
Like a roll of teeth, that bit at the sun
The sand was scattered with wildflowers and cactus
Mountain lions screamed, wolves howled
All of this, and a scorpion’s kiss
To the prospector’s gazing eye
Ornery mule alongside
For the gold rush
Was on
The search is a lurching curse
Acquired by a thirst
Of a driven lust, win or bust
For the crust of the rich
He battles the desolate wilderness dust
And the confining loneliness
Of his empty heart wrenching quest
The days passing by, years laid aside
He wondered like a gypsy
In a land that thinly laid him down
On the hard bare ground
Toiling and turning from dawn till dusk
Seeking the gold vein pulse in the desert’s arm
For his life’s ever growing shadow
Of a search for gold
With a last leap of faith
Falling over his shovel into a heap
With his last dying gasping breath
He lay beside the mother load, dead!
A golden tombstone.
I am 38, live in Indiana, and have written poetry for around fifteen years - just to see if I could, then I began enjoying it.
My current interest in poets is T.S. Eliot.
interviews
editorials
How to Grow Vegetables
