NEMO

This is the updated poem that Gerry read on her blog. I am practicing my computer skill to see if I can actually move this poem from desk to my blog, a skill I don't know.

NEMO
(This poem was based on a young artist/paint, Everett Reuss who went into the canyons around my home town of Boulder, Utah and he was never found. Only his burro was found and the name Nemo scratched on canyon walls. The stories caught my imagination.)

In the ledges and the canyons
In the hollows and the creeks
There is a ghost of a wanderer
Lost and alone
He went into the canyons
For adventure to seek
But he never came home
He never came home
It was Nemo
Nemo who loved the silence
Nemo who loved wind and colors rare
It’s the ghost of Nemo
Who still wanders there
Nemo who disappeared without a trace
I believe he chose to stay
And his ghost among the canyons race
Nemo is for the sad and lonely
He can entwine your sad heart
When the whistling winds
In the canyon starts
With Nemo you can fall upon your knees
And cry out the grief in your heart
He will dry your tears
With a warm gust of desert breeze
Nemo knows
He knows the beauty of sadness
He knows of silence
Nemo know of death
He walked that trail
And it will be told always
In the crying canyon wail
The dark depths opened
And took poor Nemo
The black clouds blotted out the day
High ledges towered in triumph
As rumbling floods swept him away
Where they chose to lay his bones
They keep a secret still
It’s told in the dove’s sad mourn
Or the jaybird’s jabbering trill
Nemo rose that same day
A rainbow was his face
In it his artist colors play
And through that arching rainbow lace
Nemo, the painter
Nemo, the writer of verse
Who inspires everyone
Whose thoughts with death immerse
When you are in the canyons
For an hour or a day
Turn your thoughts to Nemo
Let him have his say
He will comfort you in sorrow
He will lift your spirit low
He will raise your eyes
From the canyon depths
To see he bright rainbow
Keep your eyes on the rainbow
See God’s promise there
When your eyes are on the rainbow
Your heart can not despair
When you look at the rainbow
You, too, may see a face
It may be the face of a loved one
You thought had left no trace
Nemo is lost when the rainbow’s gone
He’s found when it arches the sky
Nemo became a mystery
When life and death he tied
Nemo’s the name he gave himself
Nemo that means “No one”
Night shadows remind one of Nemo
The last glimpse of the setting sun
Nemo is lost and “No One” is lost
That’s how it will always be
Nemo lies close to the open heart
For each man to look and see
Nemo in the canyon
Nemo in the arch
Nemo in a jutting peak
Nemo in a fiery sunset torch
…Linda King - 1962




I did it. I have been trying to do that stupid little step ever since I started my blog. I think I have it mastered. Ann, if you read this here is the copy of Nemo that you asked me for. I suppose this might work on a e-mail as well. This poem was written way before Bukowski and Peter laughed at my rhyming poetry. I told them I loved nursery rhymes...still do.