Canyon Blues

Even when you can't see the rivers, you can feel them:
gaps in the landscape where the terrible cliffs plunge
into the earth. And overhead the opalescent sky
goes on and on, held up by the same sagebrush wind
that throws suicidal tumbleweeds under trucks.

You look up from the river and the sky seems so far away.

Baby ravens call from their cliffside nests and their mothers
answer from the tops of invisible towers. They shall inherit
this vastness of air. Theirs is the kingdom of cumulus
and juniper.

I look up from the river and the sky seems so far away
And these cliffs hide all except the smallest slice of day.

We have not stolen enough feathers to get us through
a winter storm. We have not learned to be lifted by
convective ribbons of air, too slender ever to be used
as lifelines by us. We remain forever strangers
in the kingdom of vastness. And the mountains hide their faces.

And these cliffs hide all except the smallest slice of day.

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