As a follow-up to last Wednesday’s post, I’m sharing a poem of my aunt’s that was in the trunk. This aunt, my father’s younger sister, is from a branch of the family I hardly ever had contact with. When Dad told her I was writing, she wrote to me and shared some of her work. It was encouraging to me, knowing that writing ran in the family.
Joyce was born in the mid-1920s, in northwestern Kansas. Her voice in this poem sounds like that of a teenager or young adult, so I’m speculating she wrote it in the late ’30s or early ’40s.
Before you ask, I am not throwing out her original! I’ve transcribed it into a PDF, so I can share it with family in the modern era. Especially if I ever hear from Joyce’s children. She didn’t title the poem, so I’ve been arrogant and assigned one.
Ride and Ride
by “Auntie Joyce” Dunn Shelley
Give me a day that is sharp and clear,
When the wind blows fresh and strong.
Give me a horse — stout-hearted and true,
And let me ride and ride, all day long.
We’ll be together, Gypsy and I,
And thunder into the dawn.
We’ll share in the magic of wind and sky,
And ride and ride all day long.
We’ll race with the silver that runs in the creek,
We’ll race with the clouds on high.
We’ll race with the Sun as he climbs to his peak,
And starts his trip down from the sky.
We’ll rest a while midst the sea of green
That rolls on the valley floor.
Gallop over the hills where the air is keen,
While the Sun slips out through the Heaven’s door,
Leaving his trail of molten flame
That heightens and towers and dies.
Then we’ll ride to the ridge where the Moon appears
And climbs her way into the skies.
Give me a night with a sky full of stars
And a wind that’s a sigh in the trees,
And a horse — whose silent friendship
Like an echo, answers the breeze.
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