"Autobiographies of great nations are written in three manuscripts – a book of deeds, a book of words, and a book of art. Of the three, I would choose the latter as truest testimony." - Sir Kenneth Smith, Great Civilisations

"I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get out of my routine." - Leo Tolstoy

I have never believed that one should wait until one is inspired because I think the pleasures of not writing are so great that if you ever start indulging them you will never write again. - John Updike

"The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it." - J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Poetry is the shadow cast by our streetlight imaginations." - Lawrence Ferlinghetti


[Note - If any article requires updating or correction please notate this in the comment section. Thank you. - res]


Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Wallace McRae - Days Long Ago





Days Long Ago
by Wallace McRae

Come with me to my home town, Cold Shrift, Montana.
Remember that sand rock on Emil's crik',
Where dad carved his name in '13?
It's been blasted down into rubble and
Interred by a drag-line machine.

Where Phetel's lived at the old Miler place
Where us kids stole melons at night?
We dozed it up in a funeral pire,
We torched it - it's gone alright.

There's a railroad lug in the cold storage shed
Where the bison kill-site use to be,
McGive's place is gone and Ambose's too –
Abel Fortzes' a ranch refugee.

But things are boomin' - we've got this new school
That's envied across the whole state!
When folks up and ask 'How's things go’ in down there'
I grin like a fool and say 'Great!'
Great God how we're do’ in, we're rollin' in dough!
As they tear and they ravage the earth –
And nobody knows... and nobody cares...
About things of intrinsic worth.







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