Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TRAPPER TIM TRABUE, by STEWART VAN DER VEER


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TRAPPER TIM TRABUE, by                    
First Line: From over the hill, on a grassy plain
Last Line: Tim took his one blanket and put it on me.
Subject(s): God


From over the hill, on a grassy plain,
Came staccato yelps and a wild refrain
Of gray wolves baiting the tranquil moon,
Reflecting its face in the still lagoon.

Across the red embers sat Tim Trabue,
Putting a patch in a moose-hide shoe.
"Tim," said I, stretched at ease on the sod,
"What does a woodsman think about God?"

"God is the wind in the tall pine trees,
And the voice in the rustling corn,
The perfume which floats on the summer breeze,
The white-silver frost of the morn.

"God is the song of a care-free thrush,
And the current down in the creek,
The peace that comes with the sunset's hush,
At the end of a trail-worn week.

"God is the fight in a battling trout,
And the roses which spring from the ground,
The joyous tone in a hunter's shout,
The keen-scented nose of his hound.

"God is the real -- not hard to decide --
And as sure as my name is Trabue,
He is the Soul far under your hide --
The deep-rooted Thing that is you."

Now across the hill, in a field of light,
A shooting star dived down through the night,
And the smoke arose from our bed of coals
Like a column of restless, questing souls.

Sometime before dawn came a wave of cold,
Gnawing its way through my blanket fold;
I played fast asleep when old Tim arose,
And shivered and shook in his trail-worn clothes.

He dug up tobacco, filled his old briar,
Hunted for wood and rekindled the fire.
And then, though he thought that I didn't see,
Tim took his one blanket and put it on me.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net