Canyon’s Coming

The canyon’s coming folds me well-like

In an iris of stone-cold shoulders, sunk there

in the awful emerald blue-glazed tumble

of the river which owns this place.

I’m in the lobby of an avalanche,

volunteer in a revolving turbid tumult,

atmosphere half air, half splash,

half heaving sear of stolen breaths.

The wind of water curves my face,

a surprise of solid in it.

Under my paddle hand the bedrock-boulder shoulders

a leap of water over, carving arcs of half-space

from solid surge to trick my blade.

Tangled grasping hands of spray

haul and gasp of cold slaps to wash me

out and haul away upstream, friendless

but tall among these faded stacks

all the edges of all colors,

well-like; at the sink I see

laying back, through the quiet,

through the aperture of stone,

the heat-washed blasted blue fissure of desert sky,

jealous.