Tim Pilgrim
High on Adventure's Poet Laureate
Timothy Pilgrim

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2026,
OUR 30TH YEAR

 
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ADVENTURE POETRY: Past tents
By Timothy Pilgrim
 
   
 

Past tents

(for Carolyn)

I dream back Montana, how I waded
a high meadow stream, at each bend arced
brown-bear-blacks toward the far bank.

Until dusk. Until cold crept in.
Fire reflected red on meadow grass
when I returned to camp. Rainbow

alive a few hours ago, sizzled in the skillet
speckles and stripes still bright on their sides.
Out-fished again, I stood behind, devoured

your lithe form layered by shadows
as you crouched, spatula in hand. Mint
along the creek sent sweet scent

into gathering night. Nearby willows
waved themselves into dark pickets
sheltering our tent. Fulfilled

the day spent, I was happy
to press tight against your back
as the moon rose high and you slept.

(first published by Third Wednesday)

 

 

 

 

 

Woman by campfire


 
     
  Timothy Pilgrim, a native of Montana and retired university journalism professor living in Bellingham, WA, is a Pacific Northwest poet and 2018 Pushcart Prize nominee. His poems have been accepted more than 500 times by journals such as Toasted Cheese, Mad Swirl, Cirque, Santa Ana River Review, Windsor Review, Hobart, Otoliths and Prole Press in the U.S. Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. He is the author of Mapping Water and Seduced by metaphor: Timothy Pilgrim collected published poems, which the back cover calls “a 10 on any Richter imagination scale.”