Bill Roberts, Poet

America

Author: Bill Roberts

I’ve just returned from a visit to America.

It was wonderful seeing our country again

in all its glory, magnificent in sun and rain.

We saw bison we could almost reach out

and pet from our rental car, elk and pronghorn

antelope with their newborn, still wobbly.

Moose are as ugly as I remember and as beautiful

as I care to imagine – real, live, three-dimensional.

Bear tried to come into camp too, to steal food.

It was cowboy cookout night, steak and beans and

coffee cooked over wood fires, the bears tempted

no doubt by the meat smells, possibly the caffeine.

There were no newspapers, radio or television

up there in the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone, still

so pristine it makes you weep for their future.

A new-found friend on the wagon ride back to our

cars told me Tim Russert had died, nearly knocking

me over, so young a man he seemed, so much family.

I wept a little, unabashedly, tried to see where we

in America are headed, then reflected on this great

landscape that still defines who we are, our grandeur.

Where will we go in the weeks and years ahead, trying

so hard to hold on to what we’ve been, uncertain about

what we might become, this awesome land of ours?

I have a feeling Tim Russert knew what the outcome

will be, and is ready to pose the difficult question:

Are we ready, do we have the gumption of our forebears?

(Published in the Fall 2008 issue of Bellowing Ark)

Note:  Irene and I visited Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Park in early June, 2008.  With us were two sets of old friends from France, Philippe et Francois Berge, plus Philippe et Francine LeBoucher, as well as brother Jim Roberts and his wife Laurie.  It was snowing pretty hard when we landed late at night, but all went well thereafter.  America, especially in the wild as we saw it, is magnificently beautiful, way too difficult for me to describe adequately.  The news of Tim’s death pierced my heart, since I’d long been a dedicated fan.  Tim, like my dear friend Diane Rehm of NPR radio, would ask the difficult question of pols and pundits, never aiming low, always after the truth, fairly requested.  Folks like Tim and Diane are among our national treasures – America! – just like Yellowstone and the Tetons.  Let’s preserve them – certainly their memory.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 19th, 2009 at 11:21 am and is filed under Animals, Human Nature, Love, Nostalgia, Politics, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.