The Journey Begins
Thanks for joining me!
Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton
See the details below for information on this site and copyright information.
Author’s Bio…
Ken is a retired City Planner, Historian, CJ Researcher, Writer. Born and raised in the Midwest but now replanted in the high desert of New Mexico.
He was born only a few short miles from the Father of Waters. The Mississippi River is a constant presence in his psyche and memories; always changing, always flowing, never exactly the same. It scoured and flooded our history. It was a demarcation line – so wide that there was us and there was them. One could barely make out a figure on the opposite shore. Were they really there? There were so many stories.
It could be beautiful, or it could be fearsome. He lived as a boy near the confluence – where two great rivers flowed together. This is where Lewis and Clark, and a dog named Seaman, began the trip of discovery. This is where he and friends ventured out, across the winter ice, to explore an island in the river. The island was big and wild, positioned where the Missouri River made a long, last bend toward its destiny. He remembers the trees…massive trunks soaring skyward with piles of driftwood from ancient floods braced against the trunks like flying buttresses. There were Snakes.
Still later he lived in sight of the Missouri River, named after a local tribe… the People of the Big Canoes. This was near the farthest reach of French settlement in the old colonial days. The river stretched clear to the Rocky Mountains. The sand glitters with promises of John Colter’s mountains: grains of Granite, Jasper, and Rosy Quartz.
Now he lives on a hill sloping to the Rio Grande del Norte, called so by the early Spanish. The same river is called Rio Bravo in Mexico. His Keresan Pueblo Indian neighbors say “mets’ichi chena”, maybe the oldest name, meaning Big River – Rio Grande in Spanish. The Rio Grande is a trickle by comparison to the rivers of his youth, but it is the lifeblood of the desert. Looking across the valley there is a broad forest of ancient cottonwoods following the river south toward the sea. We would not be here without the river.
The Navajo call the river “Tó Baʼáadi”, meaning Female River; the southward direction is given a female distinction among the Navajos. So, he has lived alongside the Female River as well as the Father of Waters. The current flows in his veins. He is anchored in the river.
DETAILS
All of the content of this particular blog (Wandering, But Not Lost) has been written by the author of this site, Kenneth Hartke, unless included as a specific quotation or an attributed excerpt. For the most part, it has all been previously published on other related bogs. This site is simply a collection of scattered poetry pieces brought together into an online informal chapbook. With one or two exceptions, the images included on this blog are all original to the author. All work is protected under copyright.
Copyright: Wandering, But Not Lost
© Kenneth Hartke and https://pilgrimsw.wordpress.com/ 2014 – 2023.
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner (or the originator in the case of re-postings) is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Kenneth Hartke and https://pilgrimsw.wordpress.com/ with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
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