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