University of Denver Poem

*Denver University*

Outside Ritchie Center—Freshmen camp out
For hockey tickets, no matter the price,
Now begin years to gab & hang out:
Step out, Pioneers: Break the Ice.
Seven Hockey Titles—that’s a breakthrough
For the West where others settle for less,
Gold Pioneers—make their way through,
Then settle in a home reserved for the best.
The best hockey team in the western span,
In Magness Arena: Greatness lives,
Slashing through Tigers to claim the Gold Pan,
Showing all comers what greatness is:
A champion pedigree in hockey and skiing,
With more skiing titles than anyone else,
Giving our successors a value worth being,
And no one wants to be anywhere else,
But at home in these Rocky Mountains,
Denver, where the idea of a perfect retreat
Is at home in these Rocky Mountains,
A beauty from peaks here at your feet.
The sunshine of spring the poets tell of,
Colors rest spun from the yarn of fall,
The slopes where Pioneers show what they’re made of
Through inner gleams of Winter Carnival.
On campus for chili and joy in bundles;
The resorts where moments on air see birth,
Gasping at jumps, laughing at stumbles,
An avalanche of memories and measures of earth.
Pioneers have found a fertile world here on this western end,
When you leave out, oh, what stories you’ll tell,
Joy-ride through its pages then turn to the end:
Where you walk to the sound of the Victory Bell.

From Alma Mater Vol. 3: The West
You can read the full four-volume Alma Mater collection here.
©2016. Original Clyde Aidoo. All rights reserved