Accidental Idaho—From the Murfin Verse Archives

 

A view from Lolo pass in a smoke haze.

Note—From twelve years ago.

Yesterday morning my old Shimer friend Teri Loeb casually wrote in a Facebook status entry, “On my way home from Idaho. Didn’t realize that it was a real place. LOL” More than a little groggy from an overnight shift, I posted a reply.

Later, I looked at it and realized it was a poem in hiding.  Here it is, all dressed up in line breaks and poetic form without an altered word.

 

A Nez Percé warrior on one of the tribe's treasured Appaloosa horses.  The tribe was the first to adopt the Plains nations' horse and hunting culture west of the Great Divide in the northern Rocky Mountains.

Accidental Idaho

Some of it is imaginary.

Break the crest of the Lolo trail

on one of the few summer days

when it is clear of snow

where Lewis and Clark labored heavily

over the Divide and look out over

the blue-green world by a wandering creek

and off in the distance you swear

you can see the smoke of a Nez Percé fire.

And in rustling wind you think you may dimly hear

the hoof beats of their Appaloosas

 

—Patrick Murfin