05 2017 a special place\t\t<\/p>\n
Great and Small
\nby Paul Robert Sanford<\/p>\n
Green and gray and foamy white and brown and black.
\nGreat pillars of granite,
\npolished smooth by glaciers and weather
\nTall waterfalls pouring into the valley below.
\nTall trees sheltering campsites,
\nBrown bears darker than the dirt we walk on.
\nBlack bears the color of the paved roads.<\/p>\n
Millions of people visit each year,
\narriving in tour buses or riding buses.<\/p>\n
Time was Dad could drive right up to the museum
\nfind a parking place
\nI would go in and stare at the model of the park
\ntiny waterfalls and plaster painted gray for cliff faces.
\nBut out in the real park the smog from vehicles built up
\nSo now you park in lot and ride buses around the valley floor.<\/p>\n
I remember seeing the grand vistas from many angles,
\nI also remember seeing tiny living things up close,
\nplunking rocks in river and streams,
\nshivering with cold on a hot day
\nfrom water just melted off a glacier.<\/p>\n
When I could still walk miles without pain
\nwe took off on backpacking trips from
\nGlacier Point, dropped off by supportive parents.<\/p>\n
My family\u2019s life was marked by Yosemite
\nand Yosemite by the years.
\nAs we grew, more roads were paved,
\nbear boxes installed,
\nfooderies built where you could buy hamburgers at the price of sirloin.
\nThe tiny stores replaced by emporiums
\nwith equipment and souvenirs,
\nsmall items to linger over.<\/p>\n
Dad took his children there,
\nI took my children there.
\nThrough all these years we knew that version of home
\nwould stand like pledges of eternity
\nReminders of the slow pace of nature\u2019s seasons
\ncontrasted with the hurry of us small humans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
05 2017 a special place Great and Small by Paul Robert Sanford Green and gray and foamy white and brown and black. Great pillars of granite, polished smooth by glaciers and weather Tall waterfalls pouring into the valley below. Tall trees sheltering campsites, Brown bears…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":736,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/736"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34386"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34402,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34386\/revisions\/34402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}