Poetry and Vacations

When I was a little girl my mom would pack up poetry anthologies for our road trips and vacations. It was in the back of a gold Toyota 4-runner that I first heard the haunting sound of the Highwayman riding to his Bess. It was on a trip to Alta, Wyoming the first time the Raven pecked at my ears. It was on our way to Logan when first I wept over Somebody's darling.

When we weren't reading poetry, we were writing it. We'd look outside and see things that inspired us and my mom would assist me in writing beautiful little verses. One, in particular, still stands out to me each time I see fall colors. When I was twelve years old, we were driving through Parley's canyon on our way to Park City when my mom and I composed this:

The hillsides ablaze with glorious fire

Shouting their colors before they retire

beneath the icy, winter chill-

that rules them quiet, rigid, still.

This weekend we went camping and along the way Hailey (age 6) and I wrote the following:

A creek the color of dark blue eyes

reflecting the happiness of summer skies

which seem to speak from their lofty abode

As we travel down the winding road.

They say that God is telling me

Something about who he wants me to be.

But I don't know what.

All the ideas were hers, I just guided them slightly. I love the last line. Hailey insisted on it. She didn't want it to rhyme with anything else. Cute. This picture I found online is almost exactly what we were looking at when we wrote it.

I'm not a poet. I neither profess nor aspire to being one. I just love poetry and the way it speaks to my soul. I hope that when my family hears we're going on a road trip, they'll think of poetry. Just like--thanks to my mom--I did and do.