I have been here awhile.
Not forever
but for some time.
Longer than most
and probably longer than you.

Long enough
that I have learned the shadows.
Long enough
that I know what the winter knows.
Long enough
to have seen miners come
and their daughters grow.
Long enough
to see the pipeline built
and its workers go.

I have endured many seasons:
harassed Mallards through summer;
flushed Spruce Hens in fall;
kept the Redpolls company in late winter;
and danced with the swallows in spring.

I am worn but not weary.
I am weathered but not tired.
I am rough like the hands of a farmer
and as stubborn as the things
we refer to as truth.
For one has to be
to outlast a sun that never sets
and outwit the winter night that never quits.