Mythologizing Reality
(The Rodeo & the Hill)
Four days and it’s gone again. Gone the horses and cattle and the riding bulls. The cowboys and cowgirls and the carnies. The rodeo queen and her wide-hipped attendants. The tourists in droves and the pickpockets and drunks. The Ferris wheel and the tilt-a-whirl. The horse trailers and pick-ups loaded down with bales of hay, the gold belt buckle and the prize money. The circus tent with its clowns and one weary elephant that stands on its head and snorts peanuts. Nothing left but piles of dung and wisps of cotton candy afloat in the autumn sky. The hill overlooking the rodeo grounds is mine again, and will be thru the dim light of winter.
The people who over a hundred years ago carved a road to this high ground using mule teams had no idea what portal they were opening in the future. They planted small seeds that grew into trees and they planted grass. They planted a flag on a pole and gave salute to the mountains. They built a mock fortress on the cliff’s edge where the veterans of an assortment of wars sit and drink their lives away. Never in a million years could they have imagined that one day a long-haired hippie from California would show up and take it all back again.
