TRACKS - Poem

 

TRACKS

 

 (Copyright 2020, by Dave Kiffer)

 

These are signs that we have passed,

Coming through this area once

Or twice, crossing step over step,

And leaving this erasable trace.

We don’t even look down or back

To see this fungible trail soon swept

Clear by wind, rain and snow

And the piling up of the hours.

 

But if we knew that they could harden

Under the concrete of centuries,

That some future digger would uncover

And catalogue and ponder them,

We would most certainly take care

In what we leave so easily behind.

 


 

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

MAHONEY HEIGHTS HISTORY STORY - DN

  By Dave Kiffer For the Daily News A century ago this month, the Ketchikan City Council took its first steps to create Ketchikan's first subdivision. By the early 1920s, Ketchikan had already begun branching out north and south of the Downtown core. But land remained hard to develop along the shoreline. Houses and roads and businesses had to be built on pilings, an expensive and slow process. Local officials began looking at ways to move inland, if possible. Some houses and businesses had already started to move up Ketchikan Creek but it was basically no easier to build there than it was along Tongass Narrows. Joe Mahoney was a prospector who had come to Alaska during the 1897 Gold Rush and ended up in Ketchikan. One of the areas where he had claims was in the upper Ketchikan Creek area. Other miners also staked claims in that area, most notably James Davis who had 37 claims up there, according to Alaska state historian Rolfe Buzzell in a 1993 historic asse...
Read more

Gravina: A Tale of Two Islands

  Gravina : A Tale of Two Islands - History Story Considering that Ketchikan residents spend a lot of time staring a cross Tongass Narrows a t Gravina Island, we don't of ten know much a bout it. Yes, we take the a irport ferry a nd we fly out from the a irport. Maybe we have driven to the end of the "Road to Nowhere" or we have gone deer hunting on High Mountain. Residents of a certain a ge still talk fondly of the community picnics a t Black Sands Beach. But in general, Gravina is a like a prop to Ketchikan. Something to stare a t on a sunny day, but not much else. Of course, there is more to Gravina than that. For example, did you know that Gravina is two different islands ? Well, not now, but it used to be. First of f, there a re three distinct parts to Gravina that a re a ll geologically separate, a ccording to the 1973 federal report "Geology of Gravina Island, A laska." There is the eastern side, which is similar to the geology of R...
Read more

KEtchikan Pilot Found Millionaire's Plane Crash in Boca de Quadra in early 1950s - History Story

 http://www.sitnews.us/Kiffer/HermanLudwigsen/032520_herman_ludwigsen.html    Ketchikan Pilot Found Millionaire's Plane Crash in Boca de Quadra in Early 1950s   Most area residents are familiar with the plane crash of legendary pilot Harold Gillam in Boca de Quadra back in 1943. But almost exactly a decade later there was another crash in Boca de Quadra, barely a mile away from where Gillam's plane when down. This one involved Ellis Hall , the multimillionaire owner of Texas-based Condor Petroleum. Hall was on a vacation with his wife, two daughters and a family friend to Southeast Alaska. After visiting Juneau, Ellis was piloting his de Havilland DH 104 Dove, a large twin engine plane. The plane would disappear after leaving Annette Island on August 17, 1953 leading to a month long search, before the wreckage was found by Ketchikan pilot Herman Ludwigsen . Hall had landed his plane at Annette because the weather was beginning to deteriorate but wa...
Read more