Poetry in the news

With all the discouraging news we’ve had lately, especially scary fire stuff from Glacier Park, I took two hours looking back in the records this week to find a column that could bring on a smile or two. Actually found a lot of them but have chosen one from summer of 1985 that shows there can be difficult problems managing a National Park which do not require great expense and closures of facilities.

Some very unusual news events just seem to bring out the poet in my soul. This one is about Park Rangers removing a horse carcass off the Highline Trail. Yep! It was the summer of eighty five:

That weird operation was necessary after two young men took an illegal trip through the Park, and wound up shooting an injured pack horse just as it managed to struggle back up on the trail, after sliding off the treacherous Ahern Drift. The dingbats were arrested and hauled into Federal Court; however, the carcass was a lure to wild animals on a popular hiking trail:

ODE TO THE BLASTED BEAR BAIT

Two dues with less brains than mere gall.

Had a horse which took a great fall.

They shot the poor beast, from north, south and east.

Then left it for bears large and small.

Rangers came by where the dead critter lie,

And wondered “Oh Dear! What to do?”

In all of their courses, they’d learned grizzlies eat horses,

So this was bear pie in the sky.

The horse had to go but for a copter no dough.

So they sat and thought for a spell.

Then by fading light, they took dynamite,

And blasted that carcass to hell.

There were horseshoes in Sperry, and an ear hit St. Mary.

The shock shook the beer at Babb Bar.

And one part that flew, wound up in some stew,

On the Northbound Waterton ferry. (The end)

Also found were selected quotes from columns reprinted in the big Seattle P. I. by noted writer, Jean Gooden. She was a flattering fan.

“SEX IN SPACE-” I have always taken it for granted that when the time came for non-gravitational sex, it would be between married people. Alas! NASA psychologists have publicly stated that weightless hankypanky may possibly take place ‘among significantly related couples.’ or even less committed people than that. ‘Leave it to the government ... I have always said,’ If you plan for intimate behavior, you’re just opening the door to messin’ around.”

G. George Ostrom is an award-winning columnist. He lives in Kalispell.