Friday, February 15, 2008

"Home, Home on the Range"

"where the deer and the antelope roam", can you remember this song sung by Gene Autry?  The day before yesterday, while Mom and I drove east out into the countryside this song from my grade school days kept running through my head - and to both our sorrow I finally broke into song. "where seldom is heard a discouraging word and the skies are not cloudy all day ...." DSC_6613DSC_6612This high plane (5000+ feet) outside of Prescott and just west of the foothills of Mingus mountain, even with the trees stripped of leaves and the grasses bleached white from the cold dry air, is beyond beautiful. The sky is a clear bright blue that now I can remember running free under as a child. The sky is a big blue inverted bowl stretching from where you stand to the horizon - it is the feeling of freedom, oneness with the land.  
Below is the complete poem on which the song was based. "Traditional”  Written By: Brewster Higley,  Music By: Daniel Kelley Copyright Unknown

 

Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam

Where the deer and the antelope play

Where seldom is heard a discouraging word

And the skies are not cloudy all day

Home, home on the range

Where the deer and the antelope play

Where seldom is heard a discouraging word

And the skies are not cloudy all day

DSC_6617

How often at night when the heavens are bright

With the light from the glittering stars

Have I stood there amazed and asked as I gazed

If their glory exceeds that of ours

Home, home on the range

Where the deer and the antelope play

Where seldom is heard a discouraging word

And the skies are not cloudy all day   DSC_0285

Where the air is so pure, the zephyrs so free

The breezes so balmy and light

That I would not exchange my home on the range

For all of the cities so bright

Home, home on the range

Where the deer and the antelope play

Where seldom is heard a discouraging word

And the skies are not cloudy all day

Oh, I love those wild flow'rs in this dear land of ours DSC_6611

The curlew, I love to hear scream

And I love the white rocks and the antelope flocks

That graze on the mountaintops green

Home, home on the range

Where the deer and the antelope play

Where seldom is heard a discouraging word

And the skies are not cloudy all day"

 

GingerV

5 comments:

  1. You lucky woman!!

    Lovely area of Arizona. If I ever go back to the States, it will be hee are somewhere in the 4 corners region.

    Rio to Prescott...what a change!

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  2. the four corners - the place of origen of 'the people' the navajo indian. If you look on a geological map this was one area not flooded - a high area when all of central USA was a shallow sea. read some of the 'stories of the People', that in the last 25-50 years have finally been writen down and published - suprisingly very simular to the stories in the bible.

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  3. I have that same photo...somewhere, we took a month off and hit all four states, including boring Kansas, poor Dorothy! After that drive we would never be the same. We also found some good wines...great post, and thanks!

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  4. To GingerV:
    I love where the mountains meet the desert. I was raised in Nevada where the area looks similar to this in places.
    I am also fascinated by stories of "The People" (Dine')...or the Navajo (as they were called in the area where I was born in New Mexico.) I've been to the four-corners when I was very small and do not remember it. I've heard recently that it's actually in a different place than originally calculated!!! That's got to be wild for the place that is the tourist attraction!

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  5. The 4 corners is probably the states trying to share the tourist revenues, but the birth of the 'nation' is close to there because the indian stories (verbal until as recent as the 60s) talk of the high plains and flat mesas. their stories put to poetry is also very beautiful.

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