Aspen Misc: Poets Among Us
With people laying low with extra time because of the coronavirus, we’ve received a few poem submissions last week. Below is a sampling.
Commander in Tweet
He is a Bullet Proof
Egomaniac …
He is Teflon coated
Nothing sticks
Cause nothing means
Anything to him
While every body else
Is selling toilet paper
On the streets
A dollar a sheet
The little birdie
In his head
Tweet..tweet..tweet
Hinton Harrison
Aspen
The Fog
I’d like to share a poem written by Chapin Wright during his Outward-Bound School in Maine, 1971:
“Mother nature has let us flounder all night lost in the fog. We fight our way, she is telling us with the fog that life is not always a direct sighting. You don’t always know where you are or where you are going. You can only keep fighting on, with a smile, until it breaks, and the new light is seen. Then you are on your way again, it may be in a new direction, but it is life. Thanks for the fog …”
I am writing on behalf of the Chapin Wright/Flatirons board. We are in the process of reading the applications for the 2020 recipient of this scholarship. Unfortunately, Chapin was tragically killed in an automobile accident on the way to the senior party. The scholarship committee felt that Chapin exemplified the qualities that the scholarship represents and to this day the scholarship has been renamed in his memory. The criteria for the scholarship is: an Aspen High School senior who shows qualities of leadership, in the areas of the athletic, academic and within the social fabric of the high school community.
This year all of the board members at different times have been wanting to read and reread this poem. It was written when Chapin was 18 years old. How relevant it was when he wrote it in 1971 and how it is seems even more relevant today. We have to believe that the fog will lift and somewhere, somehow while we are in the fog, the world will be a better place when it lifts.
Lorna Petersen, Aslaug Wright, David Guthrie, Bob Starodoj, Rob Gile, Lisa Thorpe, Roger Marolt and Ben Hall
Aspen
Vertigo rules
Vertigo … vertigo … is it yes or is it no?
Are you sick … am I well?
How in hell can we tell
When getting tested is so slow
You don’t know, I don’t know
What to do … where to go?
No wonder we’ve got vertigo
The economy, you and me
So, confused we’re all dizzy
Showmanship ain’t leadership
More BS means less progress
The number of deaths is sure to swell
If we don’t wash our hands real well
Hospitals don’t have the space
So, quarantine the human race
Life is now upside down
And lies won’t turn all this around
Blame this … blame that
Complete confusion is where we’re at
Cause all we know is vertigo
Vertigo … vertigo … is it yes or is it no?
Are you sick … am I well?
How in hell can we tell
Ignorance isn’t bliss
They want to wash their hands of this
You don’t know, I don’t know
If death will end our vertigo
Greg Lewis
Woody Creek
Sallinen lands on X Games halfpipe podium in debut, Ferreira crashes out
A local kid got on the X Games Aspen podium on Sunday night, but it wasn’t the one most people expected. Even Jon Sallinen didn’t think he’d be taking home a medal.