Burkhard

I attended a celebration of life for Burkhard , a German teacher I worked with for 15 years. Burkhard suffered from a mystery illness for the last dozen years of his teaching career, but never complained. An avid outdoorsman, this poem was found in his journals after his death.

Campfire Notes

Magic. The time we three sat around the campfire in the twilight. The desert stretching out at our feet, its gray sage singed purple with the setting sun. A sunset as if God could paint. Range upon range of great black mountains rising in every direction round about. A beauty, a weirdness, a charm, a desolation, a love, a fascination, a delight, a far awayness, a protectiveness, an independence, a sense of possession and satisfaction. In our heads, the glory of man with a desert instinct and capacity to enjoy and long for. In doing so it possesses that instinct. It’s a thing that grows inside of you. It’s a thing that grows inside of you. It’s a thing that rises in a man triumphant over hardship and dust and temperatures and physical discomfort. It’s the gift of wilderness.