No Longer My Own
(published in Colorado Life Magazine March/April 2014)
I have no wishes other than the Cottonwoods return to life,
Their deeply etched torsos,
Firmly planted in the riparian snow
They are the boldest forms on the prairie horizon
Their stillness a match for mine.
Two creak in the early winter’s wind,
An atonal knell of nothing to come,
Their emptiness suddenly startled by a screeching crow
A few pale leaves tremble and dangle from the canopy
I’m afraid they too will wither from the limb
And fall beneath the next snow.
The chalk blue sky calls me
To the distant rugged mountains,
I sense a frost coming from the north
To pierce my layers of warmth
To fell the final flickering
That is the only light keeping me visible
Holding me here.
In the morning I will be gone
Still unsure if I was ever there.
