Long Gullies Poems
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Seth S. Gidley
1832-1916
I will never forget the rain that winter,
And the landslide that still stains my grave.
An evil cursed wind it was,
Lacerating the drenched cliffs
And descending gullies of Rubio Canyon,
With wailing sheets of raining hell!
My friends, as long as this life of ours,
Continues with its temperate turning,
You and I shall never see nor meet any striving soul,
As brave and strong as my delirious,
But loving daughter, Evaline Gidley Drew.
I did indeed find solace in knowing she survived,
That rainy horrible day up by Echo Mountain,
February in ’09; no man indeed should have to sit,
Aghast, with the mind-numbing memory
Of one’s daughter being buried alive in her own home,
Of one’s grandson, missing for the night,
Being found the following morning,
Buried and dead in the debris.
And oh, the bravery of that soul,
Of my Evaline saving her twin girls,
When the rocks and mud began to rumble!
Of my Evaline blindly running into that death house,
When the killing landslide mercilessly hit,
To save her husband and sons still,
Only to be struck down in the descending wreckage,
Barely alive, as it set fifty feet down!
I cannot fathom such courage, my friends.
I am still awestruck, here in my grave.
Praise God they survived that day...
Sans my grandson...Thayer.
Me and Ruth lived seven more years after that,
On shady Milton Street in quiet Whittier.
We lived there through many a fine summer sunset,
And many a fine Yuletide feast.
We grew old in the faith of our Lord,
And died, the both of us, in 1916.
And here we lay by the walnut trees.
But I will never forget that rainy winter,
In Rubio Canyon by Echo Mountain,
Back in ’09, near the old Pavilion there,
When Evaline Gidley Drew, my delirious
But loving daughter,
Showed saintly auras that day,
The like of which
You and I have never seen!
My quest to walk across the nation,
like vaunted pioneers of old,
started in Maine six months ago,
post vlogs of my progress for folks.
I am deep in Wyoming now,
and I’m on my third pair of shoes,
brown grass beneath, cropped by cattle,
in front the prairie meets its end.
It’s a spread of foot-hills at first,
low and slashed by gullies, canyons,
their slopes half-forest, half-open,
perfect space for elk to graze.
Cannot see any up there now,
though a few buzzards wheel about,
behind them loom big, granite waves,
frozen forever into peaks.
Not the first to just stand and stare,
nor am I the last, I suspect.
There are goats up there, snowy white,
and grizzled bruins, huge and brown.
Mulies with their tall, forked antlers,
and charging, spiral-horned sheep,
darting amidst blazes of aspen,
near soldier-strait ponderosas…
Snow still clings on, up near the crests,
I don’t think it will ever leave.
Nearby, a decrepit wagon,
old wood bleached by endless sun.
Is it a relic of the past?
Or decoration of today?
Who knows, but its path ended here,
mine continues, right through the peaks.
Plateaus rich with earthy moss.
Heady to the sense.
Where tufts of grass grow scattered on
and everywhere is dense.
Where little boys pull grassy clumps
to throw them in the air.
These grass-bombs losing all their sand
to landing in their hair.
A place where ridges run the breeze.
Their bleached stone smooth to touch.
Their gullies acting like a trough
that puddles form as much.
Where sticks lie flat against the ground
to dry without a bark.
And gravel bloats between the weeds
wet stones sit on to park.
The very spot you sooth your soul
To flip the stones for peace.
And know when nature's company
has power that won't cease.
He had not dwelt there long,
he was a tenant
a traveler.
The stone walls carried no sound
to the outside,
but on the inside
every movement and whisper
was transmitted and amplified
through a matrix of fluting's,
gullies, pipes, and vents, etched
into the leaden masonry.
His room was a dry-walled cube.
He lived there quietly,
for even the closing of a drawer
or the tinkle of glass upon glass
seemed clamorous. The sounds
magnified.
He had not seen the other rooms,
the other tenants.
He had heard footsteps,
shuffling movements,
groans,
toilets flushing,
close sotto voce conversations
between lips and ears,
doors slamming.
After only days he moved on,
closing the thick front door
softly behind him.
Into the city street he stepped.
No one looked at him,
no one seemed to see him.
Afraid that he was alone in this
unknown world,
he tuned back to the house
but alas
it was no longer there.
Aspen, ponderosa pine, blue spruce
pink glacier-cut rock, scree, ravens
gray jay, peregrine falcon, hawk.
We climb to 11,000 feet in three days,
camp at Lawn Lake for three days. Alpine
tundra. Elk, bighorn sheep, marmot.
Tileston Meadows, ticks in grass,
rock face of Mummy Mountain.
Binoculars show pink cracks in gray rock.
Stoke gas stoves, play cards.
Boil water, set up tarps, lay out
sleeping bags, hang bear bag.
Watch crescent moon slice into
Fairchild Mountain. Moonlight
makes a mosque of the rocks.
Yellow aspen splash in dark green
spruce and pine. Gullies where streams
slash during spring snowmelt.
One rock, feather or flower worth
more than money. Need no wallet,
keys. Just clothes for fur.
All day climb toward saddle to see
what's on other side. One hawk floating
among bare peaks and over valleys.
Wind at 13,000 feet
turns to sleet. Turn back from peak,
take boulders two at a time down.
Winter moves into mountains.
Then we fly from Denver to New York
where it's still summer.
Written: June 18, 2026, for a contest sponsored by Constance La France
Quote: "The brain discovers, but emotions replicate past occurrences forevermore." By Poet
I glide amid suspense as the air grows dense.
Through amber fractures that scrape the fence,
Still blazed for the thrill your shadows wore—
The anchored verdict, of evermore.
A silted shard of time daze,
A wire-mesh mirror that grate and glaze,
It scrapes the shell where the marrow tore—
A signal throbbing evermore.
Through gullies choked with a sullen scent,
Through spans of gloom where lumber's bend,
Your strobes ignite on the slatted floor—
A sizzling earth expanding evermore.
You lodge inside the strained strain,
A white-hot core that no veil can drain,
The pulsing pitch, I cannot ignore—
A sinew humming evermore.
And after the casing snaps its seam
When digits fuse in a blinding beam,
This vacuum slams on a rock-bound shore—
The engine stilled in evermore.
Though metal cools in the still space.
The spirit-volt is gone, without a trace.
A hissing heat on rusty shore—
the agony intensified, evermore
Across troop ship bow the cliffs drew nearer
and into harm’s way mighty battalions drove -
men and mule upon cold waves of terror
stormed the beachhead landings on Anzac Cove.
The digger Dogs of War unleashed again
an Expeditionary Force by sea,
in hallowed ground of brave infantrymen
lie the bones of Empires in Gallipoli.
Great southern blue, red and white standard stars
in battle hymn out of Commonwealth port,
where the flame of liberty fiercely chars
every bleeding heart whose sons fell and fought.
A hundred years ago soldiers in a world at war
battled on a foreign shore
for King ‘n Country, God ‘n Corps.
The battle was lost, the Great War won,
their sacrifice laid bare, their duty done.
We march at dawn for mate and vet
and to remember the fallen Lest We Forget!
Sappers, farmers, salesmen, drovers and clerks -
young men and boys their slouch hats wore,
and in steep gullies and ravines fought the Turks
like when on the velt they fought the Boer.
In muddy trench and bunker riflemen joining
charged the lines on Ottoman ancient land,
loud shellfire through dead night and dawning
fell in great battle Anzac’s finest stand!
On Lone Pine, Dead Man’s Ridge, Chunuk Bair
the battlefield told a colony’s tale,
beyond those cliffs soon would her bugles blare
in Palestine, Fromelles and Passchendaele.
A hundred years ago soldiers in a world at war
battled on a foreign shore
for King ‘n Country, God ‘n Corps.
The battle was lost, the Great War won,
their sacrifice laid bare, their duty done.
We march at dawn for mate and vet
and to remember the fallen Lest We Forget!
Raise the flag and let us honour the slew
whose battle is over - the glory and the ghost
of those men of valour in distant graves who
stood their ground and stood their post!
Written: April 2015
The Road Up
The road up
hugs the side of a hill
and steep slopes fall
into dark gullies far below.
In places, tree trunks still wear
the blackened scars of past fires.
Further up, you enter a long archway
of shade, trees are taller and tower
in full height above the road -
ferns wave their extended fronds
as you pass - long ribbons of bark
hang down through the low cloud.
The air is damp and cold
with high country breath.
You stop, leave the car and walk
a little way into the forest.
All is quiet except for muted
forest sounds playing out
in a soft chorus on the edges
of your hearing. There are times
when you feel a sense of arrival,
that all the pathways
of your life have led to here.
No grand finale waits to mark
the moment, just an indifference
as if you were only ever a part
of a greater whole, the realisation
that you are not alone
but lost sometimes
in one of the many rooms
of your home.
The winter winds moan among those forlorn monuments to death,
Marking the spots where brave men fell gasping their last breath.
Upon bleak Calhoun Hill where Seventh Cavalrymen gave their all,
Now lie 225 souls in hallowed graves awaiting Gabriel's call!
The battlefield that once echoed with the screams of dying men,
And the war cry of the Ogala, Sioux, Miniconjou and Cheyenne,
Now teems with the restless spirits of troopers and Indian braves,
Listlessly roving about the Little Big Horn, the gullies and the graves!
On that Sabbath day in June the piercing bullets, lance and arrows flew.
Avenging braves pounced upon hapless victims as they counted coup!
As the sun settles in the west, heard are bugles and phantom steeds are seen.
The moon rises and casts its mellow glow o'er that cold and eerie scene.
Captain Keogh's horse Comanche, the sole survivor, though badly bruised,
Can be heard plaintively neighing for its master, alone and confused.
The curses and cries of men are heard above the clash of tomahawk and steel.
The battle played again and again on that tragic stage seems so surreal!
Yellow Hair Custer, dashing yet impetuous, had made his final stand.
Not a soldier survived the carnage since the Indians held the upper hand!
It seems that these restless souls are ever searching in an endless quest,
Perhaps seeking a fallen comrade or, yes, for well-deserved eternal rest!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
© All Rights Reserved
There is a strange movement swirling around in the sky, bringing down showers of rain, soaking the dry thirsty earth, leaving puddles and pools on the surface of the ground, filling up rivers and streams all over the town, blocking the entrance of the city and filling up all the gullies and flooding out the territories.
A strange sound is coming from the ground; it is burning mankind conscience with guilt of old and reveal tales of the people that lived in the sky for a thousand years before the universe die. I saw them in my dreams hundreds of them gather around the stream, fanning the fire to warm their bodies and making coffee before the break of dawn.
There are strange people living among us, they come from the galaxy far away from us and when my spirit is in distress they swarm the heavens in droves and sing melodious songs to comfort my soul. I can feel them all the time and this how I know that life is divine and success comes with time.
There is magic in the sky spilling pigments of old in the clouds, it is the secret of the odyssey that lives among the clouds that makes my spirit bold and winter dancing around the circumference of time telling tales of old that is divine.
Come and watch the night sky with me and, you will see some things that will make your spirit free, they are everywhere in the sky and you will never be the same when you witness the magic in the sky glides over the moon and rest its beam over thee.
There is magic in the sky and you have got to see how the world comes alive.