August 14, 2008

When the Coyote Calls Down Moonlit Dreams

On August 18 Kathie and I will celebrate our 30 year anniversary. I first met my future wife when she was dating my cousin and we were freshmen college students. I was a small town kid from Idaho. She was the daughter of society folks from southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois. It took us a few years to finally get things together and begin dating, but when it happened it all went pretty fast not counting the eleven month engagement and a stray boyfriend or two that I had to neutralize along the way.

So here we are all these years later. All of our four kids will be gone in a few weeks - married, off to college or work and chasing their own dreams - leaving Kathie and I at home with time on our hands - time enough to do a little reminiscing - which is the title of an old song by the Little River Band that was plying the airwaves when we were newly married in 1978. We appropriated it as ours and now we seem to have become the very essence of that old worn out song.

Speaking of plying the airwaves, an English radio producer of Western themed broadcasts named Graham Lees included my recording of this poem, set to music (from my CD Rimrock) on his Western Hour broadcast on station HWD Radio on June 12, 2008. It was broadcast to listeners throughout the United Kingdom.

This poem is about a dream I had one night while on a horse-packing trip through the Teton Range when I was fifteen. We were camped for the night in Death Canyon. Funny thing is, it has all come true just as it came to me that night as the noisy yappy coyotes did indeed call down moonlit dreams. The photo above is of Kathie taken just below the Prince of Wales Hotel in Waterton National Park, where we stayed on a little excursion into Canada a couple of summers ago.


When the Coyote Calls Down Moonlit Dreams
by Paul Kern

Sleep comes fast along the trail,
Twilight, moonlight and a coyotes wail,
Echoes along the canyon wall,
Are a haunting cry and a lonesome call.

Calling tonight through the cold and clear,
To the distant past or some future year.
My eyes grow heavy; I nod off to sleep,
On a saddle blanket in the canyon deep.

When the coyote calls down moonlit dreams,
To a boy still bursting at the seams,
Asleep in the canyon ‘till the morning dew,
Dreams like this always come true.

Evening cool raised a gentle breeze,
As the horses pawed the roots of the trees,
Of the picket line standing tall and true,
The years to come came into view.

You came to me though you never knew,
We walked a while as warm breezes blew,
A seaside, a riverside, a far off place,
I saw your smile, long hair and face.

As sunrise kissed the morning dew,
I knew some day that I would find you,
And each to the other would belong.
It was all right there in the coyote’s song.

We found each other and have lived the dream,
That came beside a mountain stream.
Asleep in the canyon ‘till the morning dew,
Dreams like this always come true.



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