Caribou

I wrote this poem, Caribou, in the early 1970s. I take it out and massage it every so often. It's dedicated to the memory of those who built the silver town. Caribou wasn't much in modern terms. None of those towns were much. A loud noise, a hard road certainly. By the turn of the 20th century most were going or gone. Colorado owes much to them. They birthed a state.

The Road and the Visions

Trapped between the blasted rocks,
The pavement winds
And works its way through the hills.
Past Nederland
It finds an air of freedom,
Running fast and true
Toward the nearing peaks
And Caribou.

“Caribou is SILVER! Rivaled by nothing, this is where a young man's dreams come true. Presidents walk on Caribou silver bricks! With just a pick and a shovel, a man can work his fortune in a day!"

“Caribou? There is nothing there now but the wind. A few shacks, foundations and headstones. Nothing else.

"Once - I'd guess it was really something”


The Wind; Thoughts and Lessons

"The people who built this town didn't build to last out the first big payday. It wouldn't have mattered anyway. It was too windy"

Sometimes,
The wind will blow and howl
Through windows and cracks in wall.
I think then,
The wind is an old angry man,
Sweeping the dead leaves, branches,
And neighbor's trash cans.

We were kids,
And spread our coats as wings.
Leaned into the wind and wished
We would fly and hoped
We wouldn't fall.
So we knew Chinook;
And forgot our wasted matches
And lost hats.

The wind was more than that to Caribou.

“It was wind that killed this town. O, there were other things too. There was a plague and fires. But mostly, it was the wind. You can't keep a town where the wind won't go below ninety miles an hour."

 The Legacy

"The miner's did some pretty bad things up here, to themselves, their women, to the mountains. I wonder if the mountains didn't just get tired of it, summon up the wind, and blow all the people back to the flats. I guess not; the wind was here before the miners, wasn't it.

"The wind is the only thing left now”


The wind left hopes;
Or held them
And holds them yet -
Hopes not seen, though heard
On the wind,
And always felt.
The brawling hearty hopes
Of glory-holes and whiskeyed whores
Holler down canyons to land below.
Quiet hopes of peace
Seek peace,
Slip through rocks and knotty wood,
And slip away.
Desperate hopes
Shriek,
Fall to moans,
And fall away.
Silent,
Hopes of wishes lost and life regained,
Brush across the grass,
Linger,
And wander on.

.... Once

Once again winding,
The road goes to dirt
And roughly,
It comes to end.

Caribou.
A headstone there, a shack here,
Blasted and strafed by the wind
And dead many years.