Thursday, June 12, 2014

Stonefly


The pikas shrill from their hay mounds;
the dry shift of the stonefly pounds
across that laboring lake of air.

We came to the high country quick this year,
holding the sky to our face like a mirror,
the lakes and the forests behind us. Turn

and the line of the sun swivels and whips
and burns against our fingertips:
slow down, give ourselves time to earn

the meadow silence above the trees,
the shivering blood in our unsteady knees;
we came to the high country quick this year.

5 comments:

am said...

This is another of your poems that I can feel from head to toe. Had to look up stonefly. Insects have their own peculiar beauty. Thank you for so generously sharing your poetry for all these years.

Dale said...

Thank you so much, am! xoxo

Kristen Burkholder said...

"shivering blood in our unsteady knees" so much heart there! And what a finely crafted line!! (and poem)

Dale said...

http://www.nrmsc.usgs.gov/research/lednia

K Braithwaite said...

I came here by accident and I am glad to read your poem... very fine