Over untallied millennia,
    roiling Gunnison waters
sliced through southern Colorado
    schist and gneiss like a sabre -
carving tower walls of black rock
    ribboned with tableaus of
pegmatite and mica flakes
    flickering in the mid-day sun.

2,000 feet below, meandering
    through its stark canyon walls
like some legendary serpent,
    the Gunnison murmurs softly -
resting on its laurels.

Robert Charles Howard
September 2019