The Idea of Wyoming

My first published work, a paraphrased attempt

to describe a visit to Yellowstone Park, Wyoming

in The Bunty letter’s page circa 1970.

My father hoped that this effort,

copied from my fifth class English book,

prefigured a career in Reuters, read it aloud

to neighbours who marvelled at ‘foreign words’,

images of a geezer  throwing

thousands of gallons of searing water from the earth.

Such a prodigal geothermal wonder.

 

His voice boiled and rumbled with the marvel

of the spectacle, the lavish and frantic splendour.

He was taken with the fantasy but prouder still to be cast

as  a man who could  conceivably bring his family to America,

negotiate airports and highways,

his tanned arm leaning from the window

of a hired car as he placed a continent  at our disposal.

 

His wonder was that I could even dream of it,

be daring enough to put it in writing.

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Biography