Craig W. Steele

Above the valley’s floor I stand,
in silent pose, with dusk at hand,
atop a ridge line, crested high,
suspended ‘tween the earth and sky
upon the gloam-filled overlook,
a crowded, windswept tourist nook.
While breathing in riparian spice,
I glimpse a lotic paradise:

A bloodline spans the earthen bark
from edge of light to edge of dark,
the glint of water coursing through
each twist and turn, a muddy hue,
it’s life beneath the wavy dance
of ripples, hidden, hard to glance,
cocooned within a liquid land
that’s bounded by twin bands of sand;

The sky above, a river, too,
with jagged clouds that split the blue,
with flying furies winging ‘round
as birds and bats and bugs abound,
and blazing sun that rules all life
with welcome warmth, or fiery strife —
and when that river storms its banks,
down pours a flood and life gives thanks;

Both rivers flow through buoyant green,
twin streams of olive serpentine.
I see the forest, feel the trees,
that ebb and flow in leafy seas,
and hold their fragile creatures’ lives
within their branching, shadowed hives.
Then suddenly the Tetons’ height
impales the sun … and drains its light.