So Long

Bozeman, 30 August 2011

So long, farewell

Auf Wiedersehen, goodnight

I hate to go and leave this pretty sight

~ "So Long, Farewell", The Sound of Music

There is a gingerbread town

in the mountain west that has been

my mid-life delusion for 30 years

I enter her border from the east,

then descend to her valley, I wander

her alleys, her backstreets, her creeks

I write journals and photograph

oddly worded signs or weeds pushing

up through sidewalks. By day two

I have demystified her allure

I pronounce her a curable dalliance

then fly home to St. Paul where

she falls in my hierarchy of needs

This lasts about a week