No. 245 - Thirty Years & Jackson Hole

Aspens and cottonwoods flank an arch of antlers, I stood beneath them at 18

Lightbulbs on the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar light up like a Vegas sign

Kids play horsey on their parents’ backs, hollering, laughing, cracking imaginary whips

Jackson Drug Co serves milkshakes and no longer fills prescriptions

Two guitarists play folk music, one in a red bandanna, the other, from Nashville, shy, sits on his guitar case

This was my playground in college

In the foreground is a mountain of blonde sagebrush

Grass in the park, under the shade of poplars and a blue spruce, is almost blue

Old timers shuffle by with careful steps, some with canes, others in locked arms

I was 18 when I came to Jackson … where did thirty years go?

*Composed in Jackson Hole, WY. Edited and published in room 47 at the Union Club in Boston, MA.