Welcome Reading for the Virtual Crestone Poetry Festival

The elk herd would walk by, slow 

in the bleeding sunset

and we would watch them settling

in to the brush, tucking their hooves

softly. We would stand out in the

freezing dark with the owl and

nowhere else to go. Chest opening 

to the stars. Climb over cactus snow, over some

hill to some glittering shrine, spend ten

minutes watching the creek run

underneath the ice to see if there’s a

cold clear poem in the conglomerate, and then

tiptoe into meditation late in our socks.

Pranayama, and we would call that

a poem. A chai stain on your blue gray

scarf. Your hair blowing into the frame

on your photo of the valley, our pages weak

from snowflakes, we would call that

a poem too.