TRIBUTE TO A MOUNTAIN MAN

Jedediah's bones are spread
along the Santa Fe it's said:
no pile of stone or cross of pine--
his grave is of his own design.

Marked is the need to know the name
of one who before others came:
the tallest of the breed of men
who walked on ground utopian.

And let nothing one can say detract
from able truth and candid fact,
or take the brightness from the myth
of Jedediah Strong Smith.

He was a man who interweaved-- 
who said, and so could be believed,
in western lands so seldom seen:
"I will meet you at the Green."

Beyond the mountain, if one could look
where life and death are reckoned with,
there walks beside a beaver brook:
Jedediah Smith.

J.D.Heskin
 

CANYON WINDS

Jedediah Strong Smith,
Tom Fitzpatrick, John Fitzgerald:
canyon winds in canyons herald
names of mountain fame and myth.
Outside the boundaries of the passes,
warm winds part the prairie grasses--
ripple every pond and creek
with news of Colter, Glass and Meek.
Bridger, Walker--scores of others--
mountain men and buckskin brothers,
along with Blackfoot, Crow and Sioux
are meeting at the rendezvous.

"But they're gone now," someone said,
"Old Ephraim got 'em, or arrowhead."

Gone? Colter? Smith and Glass?
Listen to the wind in a mountain pass.

J.D.Heskin