Friday, April 29, 2011

It’s Mother’s Day


It’s Mother’s Day

by Roger Aplon 
and I’ve been watching 900 US Cavalry disembowel Chief Black Kettle’s Cheyenne women and their kids at Sand Creek, Colorado in 1864 cutting only the mature genitals to stretch on saddle knobs in Ric Burns’ documentary “The Way West”.
It’s Mother’s Day and I’ve come back from a late lunch with Mom after an emergency trip to a Vet who put down our dying dog.
She was an old breeder who’d folded after her 2nd heart attack,
three litters and 5 years on the dog show circuit.
The breeder called her Jubilee and gave her up to us to nurse
through her dotage.
She left us behind with a rambunctious pup she reared as her own.
We’ll all need to adjust.
Our friend Renee recently lost her dog of sixteen years.
Without her, she says, the walls don’t square.
They’d cross the continent together
DC to Illinois to California.
In Colorado, Fort Lyon,
where Chivington mounted his assault,
lies southeast of Pueblo
where my son’s mother has a sister.
Arid in summer, brutal in winter,
not many settled here
on the way west.
Not many tourists.
Rooms rent cheap in southeastern Colorado.
Food’s generally fresh.
A good place to barter, shop for bowls,
scavenge artifacts.
A good place
on a long trek
to pull up
get mom a coke
let the kids stretch their legs and pee.
A good place too
for the family dog to cut loose and maybe dig for bones.

No comments:

Post a Comment