LOST IN GRAND CANYON’S WOUNDS

by Dick Altman

 

Molas Pass, Southern Colorado

I’m hiking 

where eagles soar,

eleven thousand

two hundred feet

above sea level.

Summer,

and I seek 

to escape 

the heat,

climbing 

legend’s

Colorado Trail,

amid peaks,

of the Rocky

Mountains,

veiled. 

 

The forecast,

a brilliant sunny day.

The reality,

smoke,

past summits

rivering,

thicker than 

I’ve ever seen,

rendering

cloud high’s

vistas,

now grey

and shadowed,

nearly invisible.

Breathing

a struggle.

 

The source,

I discover,

Grand Canyon,

turned into

an inferno

of wildfire—

after a paucity

of man/

money/machine,

so it seems,

lets it burn,

for weeks

unyielding.

 

I recall how calm

was my visit 

to the canyon’s

North Rim,

to edifices

historic,

and surrounding

forest,

the blaze 

destroys.

And here I am,

atop a mountain,

lost 

in their scorched

essence.

 

The dense smoke

drowns my spirit

in ghostly grief.

Vultures circle

overhead.

Marmots dive

for their holes

in bands of

 rock.

A meadow

of yellow daisies,

out of nowhere,

unfurls like magic.

I push upward.

 

 

Dick Altman writes in the thin, magical air of Old West’s high desert plains, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in the American Journal of Poetry, Santa Fe Literary Review, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Landing Zone, Cathexis Northwest Press, Humana Obscura, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The Ravens Perch, Beyond Words, New Verse News, Wingless Dreamer, Blueline, Sky Island Journal, and others here and abroad.  His work also appears in the first edition of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry, published by the New Mexico Museum Press.  Pushcart Prize nominee and poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has authored over 250 poems, published on four continents.

MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN

by Judith Terzi

Not the Grand Canyon
California oak  
sycamore
Not the city park
the swings  
the dandelion
Not the baseball  
the G-O-A-L
Not the community garden
the harbor  
anchor of vessel
Not the daisy  
the buttercup
the Mojave
Not the poet
the potter
Not the artist
the artist
Not the walls
of books
allure of fireflies
walls of museums
Not the grasshopper
on a tea rose
a tea rose
Not Beethoven
under summer stars
And not the Venezuelan
who conducts him
Not the steel of Disney Hall
Not the wind of steel
the cut of space
Not the waterfall
the wildflower
the thickness of skin.


An educator and poet living in Southern California, Judith Terzi's poems have appeared in journals and anthologies including Caesura, Myrrh, Mothwing, Smoke: Erotic Poems (Tupelo), Raintown Review, Times They Were A-Changing: Women Remember the 60s & 70s (She Writes), Unsplendid, and Wide Awake: The Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond (Beyond Baroque). Her most recent chapbook, If You Spot Your Brother Floating By, is a collection of memoir poems from Kattywompus Press.

WITHOUT A NET

by David Chorlton

(Reuters) - When daredevil Nik Wallenda caught sight of the taut cable stretched over the yawning chasm of the Grand Canyon for the first time on Friday, his reaction ahead of his death-defying high-wire crossing on Sunday was pure glee.

 

                                    . . . and gravity
            Gets every one of us eventually; what matters
            Is the beauty we can do, our balance
            Before we meet the ground.
                        ("Once, We Were the Wallendas" by Don Haynie)


You can walk on air
or a two-inch wire spanned across the heat
to show the land beneath you
perfect balance.
                        From one red rim
to the other in the company of ravens
with concentration for a safety net
and a view that cuts into the earth
is a straight line that sags a little
where you tread.
                        The canyon walls
watch every step. The river below
dashes itself against rocks,
gathers itself together and asks
whether you can do that.
                                    All that holds you
is a cloven-footed pact with the forces
of chance as you lick
the taste of falling from your lips
and become the centre
of attention.
                 The crossing takes years
while the seasons rotate around you
through forest fire to ice
with everyone wanting to know
if the other side
                        will still be there
when you reach it.

David Chorlton has lived in Phoenix since 1978, and still sees his surroundings with an outsider's eye. This helps his writing projects, which include a new poetry collection,"The Devil's Sonata," from FutureCycle Press.