Stories in the Wind

Roberta Shellum Dohse

March 3, 2024

We cannot dig into rich loamy soil

Ancient civilizations just beneath our feet,

No Romans mosaics or Saxon hoards

Viking swords or iron-age forts,

But there are stories in the dinosaur bones, 

Carvings in rock, buffalo wallows, 

Cliff dwellings and abandoned mines 

And wagon ruts cut deep into stone, 

And always the ever-present wind 

Sweeping across the wide vast plains,

Sculpting the land and all that remains 

Along with the rivers, the tides of time.

The wind uncovers long lost footprints,

Then rises again to erase their path – 

Hurry, be quick, ‘ere those fragile shadows 

Are lost again in the dusts of time.

Unless we look 

To the people that remain

The traditions they carry, 

the stories they tell.

Roberta Shellum Dohse hails primarily from California. After living on a farm in northern Minnesota and in Oregon, she moved to Texas in 1980, attended law school, and has practiced law in Corpus Christi since 1997. Formerly a flight instructor and a college professor, she has always loved to write.