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Idaho Enterprise

Bard Contest Winner

“Norman”

Norman, I sought you today

As I crossed once more

The vast free lands

Of Nevada—

Green this year

From an 

adequate winter—

And crossing it all

In one easy day,

From the Humbolt Wells

In the East,

To the Sierra waters

Meadows of the Truckee

In the West.


Yes, Norman,

In a century-and-a-half

The way West

Hasn’t changed much—

We crossed the Bear

Just below Hamp ton’s Ford,

Following still

Hensley’s route west

North of the Salt Lake.

And then along the Humbolt

Toward the gold fields.


Was that, too, your route

With that heard of cattle—

And were there rustlers?

Were there poison berries?

Was your life taken—

Buried and un marked

In the Nevada desert?

Or were you too lured

By the beauty

To the wealth of California?


No, we, the children

Of Elias and Cynthia Bowen,

(Surely in the thousands now),

Have not forgotten you Uncle Norman—

The handsome but blind

Youngest son,

Miraculously healed

By God’s prophet,

Only to be lost,

A young prodigal?

And swallowed up mysteriously,

By the wild, Wild West.