Visions of Wyoming

It came in a box of Cheerios.

A little replica of a
Wyoming license plate,
With a relief of a cowboy
Riding a bucking Bronco.

Along with other license plates
That I was collecting as a young boy
Only Wyoming remains,
Fixed as a photographic image
in my memory.

A documentary of
Yellowstone Park, on TV,
Jogged my memory, that as
A young boy in Brooklyn,
I yearned to be a cowboy
And roam the frontier.

I see Wyoming once again.

The tumble-weed on the mesa,
Dwarfed in valleys by the mountains,
Where the pastel greens and
Browns of the valley fade into
The grays and whites of the mountains.

I trod the ancient Americans’ pathways
With their gods above and beside me.

A sacred feather, a paw print,
The calm, the quiet,
I am alone and lost,
Lost in amazement and
amusement.

I shout in the wilderness
that I am here;
A cowboy on the frontier.

Puma/MMIX
Copyright 2009/Tony Puma
‘Voices in my head, verses to be read’.