A Death at Tollgate Creek: Songs of the Prairie
By Art Elser
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About this ebook
The poems in A Death at Tollgate Creek evoke the spirit of the high plains, its sand lilies, prairie grasses, coyotes, rattlesnakes, pronghorn, thundering buffalo herds, the Cheyenne Indians who once hunted them, the ferocity of its storms, and crickets singing in the peacefulness of the prairie under a full moon. The reader is asked to imagine the fate of the homesteaders who once lived, loved, and perhaps died there and to consider the cycles of nature, birth, life, and death that is ever present. A Death at Tollgate Creek sings not only of the beauty of the prairie’s vast open spaces, its forever skies, its tawny sea of grasses, its graceful critters, but also of the struggles of man and animal to survive in its harsh and unforgiving environment. They tell of the fate of the Cheyenne, the buffalo herds, and the early settlers. And we learn of the play of a coyote pup, the speed and grace of the pronghorn, hear the coyote’s howl, the wind in the grass, the blue sky in the goose’s wings, the crickets, the meadowlark. Its songs are a hymn to the seasons of the prairie.
Art Elser
Art Elser retired after 20 years as an Air Force pilot and 30 as a technical writer. He has a PhD in English and taught writing for over 30 years. His poetry has been published in journals and anthologies, including Blood, Water, Wind, and Stone, Owen Wister Review, High Plains Register, The Human Touch, Science Poetry, The Avocet, Vietnam War Poetry, and A Bird in the Hand: Risk and Flight. His chapbook, We Leave the Safety of the Sea, received the Colorado Authors' League Poetry award for 2014.
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A Death at Tollgate Creek - Art Elser
A Death at Tollgate Creek
Songs of the prairie
Published by Art Elser at Smashwords
Copyright 2017, Art Elser
All rights reserved
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
ISBN-978-0-9984554-1-9
WalkerDoodle Press
Denver, CO 80220
As always to Kate —
my inspiration
and love of my life.
when I doubt
a loving creator
the meadowlark
Table of Contents
A Death at Tollgate Creek
Table of Contents
Summer
Fall
Winter
Spring
Acknowledgements
About the Author
What others say about A Death at Tollgate Creek
SUMMER
Flyover Country
From thirty thousand feet at night the glow
of city lights from DC to Boston confounds.
If each light represented only one person,
the numbers would astound. Pack too many
rats in a cage and they fight, kill, and eat
each other. How do people thrive, jammed
together like that? Why don't they go crazy?
Violent? Perhaps that’s why the evening news
in those cities is so messy.
I’d rather look down at flyover country,
the braided North Platte, emerald green
alfalfa circles, towns with grain elevators
along the railroad, a thin road to an airstrip
two miles out of town, ranches miles apart,
a field half light, half dark, a tractor pulling
the dark thread. Cattle gathered around
a stock tank in a windmill’s shadow.
The fruitful work of man in nature.
Sounds Of A Prairie Morning
Near the edge of the trail crickets