IS IT ENDING? (THANKING POET ROBERT SERVICE)
I was passing the Trail of Adventure
And old snowshoes dancing delight.
Abandoning most of good pleasure
Marveling at boreal nights.
Dogs were well up for the running.
Sled carried foodstuffs out back
Coal oil and whiskey and sugar
Oatmeal and matches, hardtack.
Sing to myself, I would often.
(Other times salted at sea.
Couldn't just rust in a factory.)
Oft' the Adventurer, me.
Now quite alone in the journey
Others had froze on the trail.
No, I would outrun the shivers.
Not cravenly, just to fail.
Kept in my pockets harmonicas
C and rich D and blues A.
Campfires became celebration.
Dogs cocked their heads as I played.
Not tonight though, they were beaten.
Fought vicious winds without end.
And in my bones, I felt smitten.
Oh for embrace and some friend.
What if the dreams, sad presumption?
What if the riches not mine?
Gold, just a Temptress and foolish.
Frozen, they'd find me in time.
God only knows of the outcome.
God chiefly knows all my sin.
Pleading here neath some old canvas.
Here, might His rescue begin?
(Marker inserted in his Book at Psalm 107)
*This poem is a tribute effort by Doug Blair of Kitchener.
Service captured the Klondike pipe dreams, the First World War wreckage, the Bohemian Artists' Raw Paris of Hopes, the strangest of Romances.
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