The Fourth Day – East Across Colorado

A half-dozen times I’ve circled Black Canyon National Park on vacation maps
and a half-dozen times we lingered too long at Arches or Canyonlands,
and Black Canyon was scratched. Who even knows there is such a place as
Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park anyway?

Now you can count me among its visitors, I’ll keep its secret.
Here are steep cliffs, ancient rock, craggy spires,
and walls streaked with dragon outlines, erosion’s art work
on rocky canvas 2000 feet from flowing river to cliff edge.

Oh, the quiet places, open spaces, vertical wilderness
shared with soaring hawks and eagles.
Cloud cover kept the canyon in shadow, but the river’s song
sounded on the high mesa and wildflowers bloomed
in the roots of twisted junipers.

Twenty years getting here and I had only half a day
to see what I had missed, a half day to know I’ll return.
When the wind gusts spiked at 50 mph, I knew I’d pushed my luck,
but a tail wind pushed me half-way across Colorado.

Colorado has fine scenery, but those low gray clouds packed with snowy potential
overwhelmed my yearn to pull over and explore.
Still, there was plenty to see –
the up and down rhythm of mountain, valley, mountain.
Tumbleweeds skirted the highways.

Cimarron, Colorado. Conjurer of Wild West.
Lakes half filled, driftwood sculptures lace the sandy edges.
And colors bleached by winter’s touch take on color — 
greening grasses, tree twigs in muted yellows, pinks, rusty reds,
Weeping willows in yellow-green tangles.
Calves snooze in muddy pastures,
content as their mothers graze nearby.

Dust clouds swirl around my car at Curecanti.
I stop at another ranger station,
it’s a slow day for recreation, the staff ply me with coffee, maps,
highlight the safest route through the eastern mountain passes.
Another hawk sweeps past my car, hawks are my companion bird this trip.

San Isabel National Forest.
Steepy Mountain.
And then Monarch Pass. Fitting, Monarch is the pass to bid me farewell
as I cross the Continental Divide and head towards the plains.

Salida and a stop at Sally’s Cafe for coffee.
The road follows the Arkansas River,
running with spring melt, thunder-crashing into protruding red rock.
Fly fishermen queue for prime locations.

In the high desert town of Cañon City
I watch the last hawk of the day —
dancing, sky diving, it welcomes the evening.

———

Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. A cross-country traveler by day, and an occasional poet. This is a poem in nine parts, because the trip lasts nine days. This is day four!