Times for Rhymes

Got trail trouble this week up near the wilderness up by Seeley Lake. An outfitter had to euthanize a mule on popular trail number 35 going into the Bob Marshall.

That reminded me of an incident years ago when illegal riders shot a crippled horse on the Highline Trail in Glacier Park. Rangers eventually got rid of the grizzly-attracting carcass with dynamite.

It was a crazy mess and inspired me to write a prize-winning poem that ended something like this, “They found an ear in the beer at St. Mary and a hoof on the Waterton Lake Ferry.

Spent two hours searching for that poem in my records but the disk wouldn’t reprint. However, I was in a mood for good poetry, so I dug up some Ostrom “oldies”…

LLAMA LIMERICKS

From Peru come marijuanas and llamas

The pick of its floras and faunas

There’s big money in grass, but you can sure bet your cash

That is safer to raise mama llamas

There was old man from Yokohama

Who bought a voracious young llama

It got fat on brown rice and squid highly spiced

But always refused fried banana

We heard of a man from Ca-ra-mas

Who taught reading and writing to llamas

They learned how to spell, took diction quite well

But left out the periods and commas

Please excuse and editorial note. To show Ostrom can be serious, here is one of the better past examples:

WHY CLIMB?

Seek the high places, because truth is up there.

Lofty peaks and sheer cliffs are natural things,

Like rainbows dancing in the waterfall mist,

Or bright glints of gold from eagle wings.

The wind is up there to moan and sight,

Or scream like the banshees from hell.

‘Neath Glacier’s sky, I’ll tell you what’s there,

God…and his flowers…and a grizzly bear.

G. George Ostrom’s column appears weekly in the Hungry Horse News.