Red Mountain Press

The Hoodoos of Bryce Canyon

Ravens come to ride the crests of ancient arias
rising from the canyon of elders
they once knew.
Elders who receded into the bands of rock that
spike the earth's crust.

The ravens come to visit storytellers who speak
of flash floods and fallen stars,
follies of foreign fools,
war paint and tears,
showers of white pearls,
angels with speckled wings,
the arrogance of a once-sovereign sea
that slipped away,
grasping at its marine memories.

These hoodoos, these princely poles,
proud of their scars and their coral-striped skin,
regale the ravens with their towering tales
and windswept sermons.
What bird would not come to glide
above these happenstance visionaries,
these vertical veterans of calamity
and chance.

The seasons, no novices at their art,
carve out their legacies,
and slowly consume the hoodoos.
Still, the hoodoos exult in their decline,
chanting to the ravens until the day,
that august day,
when they collapse into the foundry of the earth,
into the waiting womb of the canyon.

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