My poem “Mineral Point,” which will appear in my next collection, Caligulan, is in the new issue of the Yale Review, appropriately sited between two other nature poems by John Kinsella and Callie Siskel. Much to enjoy in the issue. You may buy a copy or subscribe here.
At 11,000 feet
The jeep clambers through shingle and sand.
It lunges and jolts, scrums through creeks,
High to the blocked path of the mining site.
Here, floss of waterfalls spin down Holocene shapes.
These once were ancient islands, bald peaks
Rising far at sea, the ledge on which he stands
Submerged by great waves. Today, at this height,
Engelmann Spruce and Subalpine Fir spur
Old red sediment, and Krummholz, self-entwined,
Scrabbles over the timberline. What escapes
This place? Eagles arc the dark peak, confer
A smallness on all he is left to find.
Huge cumuli horde the high horizon,
And, unfinished, he can only drive back down.