Powell's Journey

Lightning booms high in Rockies and
rain splatters on snow, melting down to
tundra green, the beginning of a
Colorado stream and John Wesley
Powell's dream of winding through
sandstone cliffs on muddy brown water
roaring past vermillion rifts cutting
deeper into desert and closer to the
famed abyss where rising Kaibab
shimmers high in sunlight over dark
depths of towers green and towers red
in ever-silencing immensity too vast
for this wild river cutting deeper into
dizziness emerging fast to dry wash
as bright mirage of its former self.

Richard F. Fleck