Winter Morning on the Wyoming Border (Pushcart Nominated)

by Nicholas Trandahl

I

Wakening.

Dreams of stars and saints

dissipate like mist

over a flowing creek.

Solitary emergence

from a frosty little tent—

outside,

crisp and cold.

Dawn stretched

like rose quartz honey

between the naked grey boughs

of creekside oaks.

Standing,

stretching,

watching the creek,

an endless watershed cycle.

Liquid Ouroborus.

Current still flowing,

tumbling out of the hills

to lands of red dirt

on the morning table

of the bear’s hold—

connecting with the Belle Fourche,

then the Missouri,

then the mighty

Mississippi,

and then

the sea,

then all the seas,

then the heavy

lightless depths of Phorcys

and his writhing legion of sons,

and then, eventually,

the sky,

and then rain—

rainfall

over these hills,

and finally

this creek

again.

II

And I here,

standing sleepily on the bank

by the white ashes

of last night’s campfire,

watching the sluggish trout

undulating in the icy current.

Witness of cycles,

I climb from my campsite,

up a wooded hillside—

snow layered atop

a quilt of fallen brown leaves.

Morning,

fully present now—

clear and bright

as church bells

on Sunday morning.

At meadow’s edge,

I rest on a log

like a chapel’s pew—

look out over snow

and golden light,

the hush

of gratitude.

A rosary of amber beads

taken from a coat pocket.

Thumb and finger

wandering

along this

golden-brown trail

of crystalline sap,

pine path of mantras.

Whispered prayers

in winter morning light.

Nicholas Trandahl is a U.S. Army veteran, poet, newspaper journalist, and outdoorsman living in Wyoming with his wife and three daughters. He was the recipient of the 2019 Wyoming Writers Milestone Award and has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize. He has published four collections of poetry and has appeared in various anthologies and literary journals.