The trip to Alaska with Sully was our first date.  Really. I have shared with you a subsequent trip we took to Australia, which was the last hunting trip I ever took.

But the adventures of his life, and the sharing of it went on for years.  During the Alaskan trip I wrote a poem for him.  It was for me the best way I could express the experience.  I happen to run across the original, written on the Prince William Motel stationary.  I’m amused as I see they billed it as “Sportsman’s Paradise, with adjoining cocktail lounge, liquor store, cafe, bowling lanes and taxi.”  Now that is a full-service motel.

Here is my poem:

You Tamed Me 

No snow fell, but the softness was there.

No icy winds blew, just the warmth of your breath.

You knew just what to do 

even when I didn't. 

The hardened ices and vices were slick

Yet you stood firm on deep carved steps.

Sometimes you pushed instead of pulled;

more often I slipped, ignoring your path.

Songs flowed long and full of meaning

many words passed, moments fleeting.

Cameras clicked without any warning

moments captured forever endearing.

Wine glassed clinked and candles glowed,

winces exchanged and serpent tongues.

Warm bodies melted in our heat

heights of passion were truly achieved.

In strolls and ceremonies we partook

forever entwining a moment in our lives.

Waiting and courage were both on display

Victory and defeat both have us enslaved.

A part of our venture is nearly ended,

yet with it begins a new one.

No regrets, and not a sorrow,

my love for you goes on tomorrow.

It is modest, youthful, and yet what it inspired from him is nothing short of beautiful.    He wrote a poem for me, the only poem he had ever written.

Reverie

Once in the light of a fingernail moon

In the light, in the night by the sea,

You rode in on a zephyr and impaled on your scepter, 

for a time all the fine points of me.

For a hiatus fleeting, your soul voice entreating,

the release of the best part of me.

Gently molding the soul of the life form you stole,

for the ride by your side through the night--

once combined our thoughts flew, for the lifetime we knew

that most die with the witching of light.

Sipping slowly the wine, squeezed from ecstasy vines,

heaven sent, passion rent in our flight.

That fulfillment of feeling, our life senses reeling

we winged through the gamut--then quiet.

The reflection, the bliss, the thought lingering kiss,

The life filmed as light limned the day;

Will remain through my mist, like your smile full of bliss,

as you mounted and passed on your way.

My times with Sully were all magical, some people in life just know how to make magic.  I may have passed on my way, but it never could have been without generous and supportive people I have known, and he was merely the first in a long line of them.

We also traveled to New Zealand and Costa Rica, and those also were grand adventures (not hunting) I will share here one day.  But those adventures are a tiny bit of what he gave to me; faith, support and unflinching belief that I could do anything I wanted to.  You know, I found him to be right.  I hope you each have someone who can make you believe in yourself, when you most need it.

It is not what you have lost, but what you have left that counts.  A lesson I learned while young, and one we would all do well to remember each morning, no matter what we face.

I go back for my Alaska fix now and then.