Telluride Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Paleolithic telluride you show your new teeth,
Uninhabited by modern man: no one skis:
Tourism of glistening caves, the bravery of no modern
Beast,
Or the populations of the equality of franchise:
Telluride, telluride: what features grew in the valley of
Your bosom:
What lizards did you know, or what seas stroked you:
Gleaming altogether atop another place on this earth:
Floating here like a hobo and looking so white:
Telluride, Telluride, oh the depth of your primordial night,
Now diademed by insular poles,
And the big trucks float atop of your rind when almost
Yesterday you were nameless and unbound and the snowflakes
That covered your pullulating body were truly gargantuan:
Telluride, uncut chariot of the powerful divide,
The roots of your monolith are truly more barbaric than ancient
Rome: you use to be a wilderness unto your self,
But now sororities can ride right through you screaming breathlessly,
Telluride, and there are lifts up to your pinnacles pulled
By the moon’s tide: Telluride, what preternatural gifts do you
Still bare inside?