This Poem was Submitted By: Betty Lou Hebert On Date: 2000-06-26 18:09:11 . . . Click Here To Mail this Poem to a Friend!

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Prairie Winter

 It's been a lonely winter here.  I've been alone and filled with fear.  Not noted for my bravery,  Yet life has called it forth from me.  I've faced the wind, the snow and cold.  My husband's gone to search for gold.  He left me here away last fall  And went to answer Mammon's call.  I've had a horse and cow to tend.  An old, brown dog I count as friend.  The dugout is a gloomy place.  The window shows the snowy face  Of all the land that round here lies  Beneath the leaden sweep of skies  And even on a sunny day,  I still can't drive sad thoughts away.  I have to hang on for awhile.  There is a slowly ebbing pile  Of rice and beans, some flour too,  That has to be enough to do.  Some days I think I will go mad,  Remembering the hopes we had  When we first came to homestead here,  But by myself, it's very clear,  Though hopes die hard, mine are quite dead.  Survival claims my thoughts instead,  So when it's spring, I'll make my way  Back to my family, to stay.  There's nothing left except to go.  One winter is enough, I know!

Copyright © June 2000 Betty Lou Hebert

Additional Notes:
Mammon - in the New Testament, referred to as the false god of riches and avarice. Loosely based on a true happening, involving a distant relative of mine, at the turn of the century (1900) when she was left all alone on the Montana prairie while her husband went to Alaska to strike it rich! She never heard from him again.


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