Remembering Roberts French (1935 - 2018)

by Anne Valley-Fox

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Roberts French—beloved poet, teacher, writer, outdoorsman, husband, father and grandfather—recently departed this world. A life-long hiker, Bob researched on foot and edited the Sierra Club’s Eighth Edition of Day Hikes in the Santa Fe Area (2016). He served on the NMLA board from 2016-2018; we very much miss him and his gracious ways. Bob’s poems honor the earth he so loved. Here are a couple:

     A Day in March 

     One more day of clouds 
     the color of steel,
​
     hardly a color at all.
     On a day like this 

     any creature with half 
     a brain would linger 

     in the burrow, wait 
     for the sun, and sleep.

     But I am sixty-five;
     I know how light can fade.

     I will go for a walk 
     in the woods, down 

     to that meadow 
     by the river, and there 

     I will dip my hands 
     into flowing waters 

     and remember who I am 
     and where the river goes.



     Bosque del Apache 

     I remember the snow geese rising, 
     thousands, from the water,

     sudden, startled, 
     white against the sky.

     Watch, my son the birder 
     said. Something will happen.

     And then the eagle struck
     and dove to earth clutching

     its delicate prey. I watched 
     the snow geese scatter,

     thinking how innocence dies 
     in the beauty of this world.

Bob and Jenny (right - Picacho Peak)