They freed the river
A steam shovel on a barge
Gnawed the dam down to bedrock
And the river ran free
Now alders line the banks
The salmon have returned
The holy men’s prayers are answered
But a flood washed out the road
To the dam
Last year.

The dam on the Grand Coulee
Was awesome
The wildflowers on the mountain
Were indescribable
So, according to the box
Were the crackers
I had for breakfast.

My wife knows what a Dobsonfly is.
She tenderly plucks him
Off my fleece jacket
And coos how pretty
His red eyes are
Indifferent, he flies away
To mate and die.

They call in blue shade
The kind they don't like
Nothing grows beneath the tree
They like green shade
The kind that shares
But the hemlocks still stand
And the pines are dying.

I found a little fish
In a little pool
Halfway up a cliff,
Jumping bravely up the trickle
To the next pool
Which was not there
That little pool is the measure of his life
unless he jumps too far
And dies
flopping on the rock.

I keep thinking about the lion
who could pull down a buffalo alone
But when they shot him with a tranquilizer dart
And weighed him in a canvas sling
He weighed only 400 pounds.
Too small to ever win a pride
He ended as a pile of bleaching bone
He died as he hunted – alone.

Trees, so green and reaching high,
Staples twixt the earth and sky.
The branches hold the heavens down,
Even when the winds sweep round.
The roots which we think feed the tree,
Keep the ground from falling free.
If we had not these doughty ties,
Holding down the flighty skies,
Sun and dirt would rip apart,
Each their lonely courses chart,
And we would curse the name of God,
For not attaching sky to sod.