| The Lost Boy by William Tremblay Across the Poudre river bridge stands a stone monument to a lost boy. Carved words fix the mystery. Did he wander off, or was he carried off by tooth or talon? Families, friends, searched the mountainside calling his name. The weather turned. Sleet, wind, snow in slants across the ponderosas. He blacked out under the canyon's Milky Way. I hear his cries in echoing arroyos. Though his bones mouldered in cold drizzle he comes crashing through wild plum thickets clutching at my shirt, asking where I was in his sagebrush hours. Through his ripped jacket a flash of bone. I dare not touch his skeletal shoulder. He's forgotten how to be alive. The climb is no relief, his weight dogs my knees. Breezes sough through purple yarrow aspen groves, dry waterfalls. I reach the cloud meadows, hairpin switchbacks until Mount Greyrock juts its granite forehead into one hard thought: what remains unfinished in the soul keeps doubling back until earth and sky are balanced aches like the cliff swallow's swift flight. Copyright (c) 2002, 2003, by William Tremblay. Used with the author's permission. |
| Vintage Colorado Poetry marks its fourth anniversary with a contemporary poem of the wild, "The Lost Boy" by William Tremblay. First published in LUNA, a literary journal, "The Lost Boy" by William Tremblay was reprinted in The Best American Poetry 2003. Broadside (16" x 8") available from Bonfire Press. A native of Massachusetts, William Tremblay lives in Fort Collins and has taught at Colorado State University since 1971. |
| Vintage Colorado Poetry Poem of the Month October 2007 |
| James B. Hemesath, Editor Vintage Colorado Poetry jimhemesath@comcast.net Copyright (c) 2003-2007, Vintage Colorado Poetry |
| Also by William Tremblay The Writing on the Wall |