I also wanted to share this one I wrote, which she said was her favorite of mine. I never told her she was part of the inspiration for writing it. I believe she knew.


The Wyoming Transplant

She met him in college
the scion of a blueblood Boston clan
and loved him for his dry humor and moist skin
What he saw in her
was a kind of elemental force
a straight forward disingenuous directness
and the way her eyes lit up in laughter
After graduation they wed
and he took her East to a big house on the Squanacook
where the water lay placid and green
like a late-summer pond in a Rock Springs feedlot
and the hills, cool and green in Spring
hedged the sky to a steamy patch in Summer
After a year or so, even the relentless high plains wind
seemed like a happy remembrance
She climbed big hills in ridiculous hope
of seeing the distant purple and yellow
of the faraway Wind River Range
Once, a Ford pickup with golden cowboy plates
lay just ahead at a Boston traffic signal
and as she passed, laughing, called out
"take me home!" to the startled driver
whose brown rutted skin creased in a grin

After the divorce, she stayed on from habit
growing pale and weak in the wet winters and soggy summers
Until, at age 56, and leaving two grown children behind
She sold out, loaded what was left
and moved to a double-wide on a dry, rutted arroyo
in the wide country East of Rawlins
and in that raw and sandy soil
that defied her attempts at a rose garden
she herself took root at last
and flowered, thin and bright
as Indian Paintbrush