![Their little dark houses still dotted the prairie when I was growing up
They all seemed to cling to he soil as if their life force had all been used up in the long and difficult transplanting, and they could hang on but no longer grow
Or they stood alone surrounded by sadness and the small and smaller markers of what had fallen to the reaper's scythe
Their roots, loosened year after year
by the hot winds and the deep frosts became more and more brittle
Until one by one they broke off like tumbleweeds and were gone](https://i0.wp.com/www.neilmeili.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/The-Lonely-Men.jpg?resize=600%2C600)
The Lonely Men
![Their little dark houses still dotted the prairie when I was growing up
They all seemed to cling to he soil as if their life force had all been used up in the long and difficult transplanting, and they could hang on but no longer grow
Or they stood alone surrounded by sadness and the small and smaller markers of what had fallen to the reaper's scythe
Their roots, loosened year after year
by the hot winds and the deep frosts became more and more brittle
Until one by one they broke off like tumbleweeds and were gone](https://i0.wp.com/www.neilmeili.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/The-Lonely-Men.jpg?resize=600%2C600)
Since the writing of this poem Ralph Goodale has left politics and is presently serving as the Canadian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom.
A link to the 1980 film The Hounds of Notre Dame – a glimpse of life at Notre Dame College in the 1940s and the extraordinary man who created it. Author also a former student.
Because the heart is bigger than trouble, and the heart is bigger than doubt, But the heart sometimes needs a little help ,to figure that out
Wood River by Connie Kaldor