Widows creek whistles round the bend
dried up; on winter, it depends.
Men once greedily panned for gold
and froze to the spot in the cold.
Women, alone, stayed with their kind.

Wives lined the creek and let tears flow . . .
letting pure, pristine water go.
Screams in the night heralded a birth . . .
was it human or Mother Earth?
Everyone was in the same bind.

Dysentery of heart, misery,
infected the community.
Hope fled on the wings of their dreams,
their tears cascading into streams.
Not a nugget did they e’er find.

Discouraged, unable to weep
e’en the widows laid down to sleep.
Tears of children fell plentiful.
Then they found something wonderful . . .
glimmering hope . . . in the rimrock’s rim rind.