Bozeman, 30 August 2011

So long, farewell
Auf Wiedersehen, goodnight
I hate to go and leave this pretty sight
~ "So Long, Farewell", The Sound of Music

There is a gingerbread town
in the mountain west that has been
my mid-life delusion for 30 years

I enter her border from the east,
then descend to her valley, I wander
her alleys, her backstreets, her creeks

I write journals and photograph
oddly worded signs or weeds pushing
up through sidewalks. By day two
I have demystified her allure

I pronounce her a curable dalliance
then fly home to St. Paul where
she falls in my hierarchy of needs