There are two vast cottonwoods near a creek
when I walk between them I shiver.
– Jim Harrison (“Doors”)
Our buckeye portal, a perfect pair to pass through.
Killion and Snyder’s yellow pines, side by side—
this partnership of trees for years near the top
of Sulphur, garnets, quartz and crystal, shafts
of granite thrust out of the earth as weathered
phallic totems among blue oak vast skies.
What words, what power lingers in the leaves,
whose dark eyes see more than mine, I wonder
with each welcome here—these gray limbs
dressed alike, or not at all, buckeyes arched
in season. Passing through either way
along this cow track refines the senses.
drycrikjournal 