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