A farewell to paradise…

Behind me some 2,000 miles, Iowa to Poulsbo, Washington.

And since then another day’s drive, this one east, another 700 miles.

East now as far as Livingston, in Montana, to the gates, to the gap, to Paradise Valley. The three of us—Karen, daughter Siobhan, me—holed up in the Murray, as Peckinpah once did, albeit without bullet holes in the walls to commemorate our stay.

And out there in Paradise…

This morning, this last morning, I’m alone in Paradise Valley, Karen and Siobhan in the car, me scuffing dirt car-side, the sun chinning up over the Absorakas.

Not far away the Yellowstone rippling, loudly rippling, river meeting rock. The smell of hay from nearer fields, hay as redolent as July itself, the bales themselves rounded, tumbled into some semblance of a stack. Cows from across the road lowing, reminding me, if reminding were necessary, of life.

And rimming the horizon, the Absorakas themselves, the highest still skirted with snow, those skirts tattered by sunlight. Clouds this morning skirling peaks. The air crisp, but waiting to warm again to 90°, the heat’s saving grace its low humidity.

A last look, this last look, and eastward to home…


© 2011 by Dónal Kevin Gordon