For Your Perusal...Just Touching Base

[Pocketman]

Howdy-do,

It's been awhile since I posted, however, I've been checking-in now and again to keep updated. I hope everyone is having a good season...lots of gold, or at least lots of fun! I tore some leg muscles and am just getting back on my feet. I was only able to make one two-week prospecting trip happen so far this year. I went to Tuscarora and the Eugene Mountains in Northern Nevada...got skunked (doesn't happen too often), but I had a really terrific time. It's just felt so.....ooo good to get out in the bush! I hope to make at least two more trips this year...one pretty soon to the Sierras and the other to the Mojave...sometime this coming fall or winter.

I've been writing a little (Google Knols). I just entered a poetry contest with a prospecting centered poem that I wrote, and also embedded into my Knol "Digging Gold in the Mojave Desert." I'm pasting the poem here in case there is anyone one the forum with a stomach strong for such stuff. Good luck to all you old sourdough codgers (like me) and the young up and coming lads too!

The Annealing

The hardest work I’ve ever done,

Was digging for gold under the desert's sun.

It was up at dawn,

pick ‘n shovel locked in hands,

Off to sweat and toil on the burning sands.

Week after week, not to go bust,

I swang my pick from dawn to dusk,

While all covered and chocking in blizzards of dust.

It wasn’t unusual to encounter snakes,

Scorpions and Killer bees,

that were eager to drop me to my knees.

Each day, as the sun dipped behind the Pinto's,

And purple shadows raced across the land,

I stumbled back to camp to shovel Chile beans

Straight from my larder of cans.

There I would lie beneath a blanket of stars

to doze and rest my blistered hands.

And all through those long cold nights,

I weighed fists full gold,

creations that I dreamed.

I was destined to strike it rich…or so it seemed.

For, surely, in the nearby hills,

Under thorny cactus and rotting rock,

Beckoned my ticket to paradise.

I would make it mine,

No matter the work...no matter the price.

Then with pockets filled with gold,

I'd whoop, holler, jump up and down,

And bolt straight for Rowdy town.

There my story would be told,

And my gold would be sold.

At the bar of the Sourdough saloon,

I'd lay my money down,

And declare it New Year's Eve

For everyone in the town.

It’d be steak and ham bones

For my ol' tail-wagger...Yubalee,

She having been my sole companion,

And always first with me.

Then, for all, there'd be food and drink aplenty,

Slaps on the back, singing through the night,

And a lusty...randy romp for me.

Leastwise that’s the way I knowed it would be,

Till a scrawny little greenhorn,

Only a day in the desert,

Stole it all away from me.

Though he had scooped off a layer of cream,

I still had my fire and I still had my steam;

For in addition to a prospector,

I had become an old desert rat,

From whom you can not steal his dream.

...Jason Quinten Kincade...

[richs]

Nice poem. I hope your leg heals help. If all goes well I will be heading up to Rye Patch for a few days.

Rich

[garimpo]

Yea pocketman the poem was neat and nice...

the stomach didn't turn and churn...and

my stool stayed nice and firm...so goodbye

until another day when I give it another try!

[Nugget Shooter]

Enjoyed the poem, is it OK to post it at my main site? I am always looking for stories, fiction, and poems written by members to add to my articles section.