Eldorado 1991

The old women gathered ---
With their various stages of shrunken apple faces,
With their tea and coffee and wine,
With their minds (some of them) struggling
methodically to place things and names to be
picked up later.
All strong and healthy (and really beautiful) but no
longer careless with finite bodies.
But this was not a genteel gathering for tea and gossip
--- of a ladies' social sort ---
Aside from the setting being in an old mining camp
high in the Rockies,
Reminiscent of old black and white photos of women
in their long skirts, blouses and perched hats
--- in such mining towns.
No, aside from that --- or perhaps fitting ---
These women gathered for their evolved passion for
all things wild and free,
--- and an awareness of how quickly wild and free
things can be betrayed to be no more.
These were not "the hope of the future"
--- our young ---
But the humor, wisdom and experience of the past with
a voice to save what is left,
For those souls who understand the lessons of the past,
For those souls who will need wilderness in the future,
And --- for those souls without voices --- the critters
and trees and little swimming things and creepy crawly
things and winged things and silent rocky things.
Yes, this was a gathering of the old women.

Carol Hall
Founding Member
Great Old Broads for Wilderness