“Above Railroad Creek”

by Marjorie Power

Snowmelt in mid-August.
The cold river tumbles.
From this bridge I glimpse
each stone’s particulars
as if the water intends this.

After a loved one dies
and enough seasons come and go
the missing essence returns,
a stone seen through a river
in sunlight.

Late morning sun
warms my upper back.
Before me looms a mountain peak
whose runoff feeds the river,
whose gleam could attract lost souls.

I’ve lost one friend, now two,
who would not change course
when clouds were closing in….
They’re not dead but I long to mourn.
The river reveals, moves on.
Audubon Creek, Santa Fe – Vir Kaur Khalsa

 

Marjorie Power’s poetry collection, Seven Parts Woman, was published in September, 2016 by WordTech Editions in Cincinatti, Ohio. Her poems also appear in six chapbooks and one other full length collection, all from small presses in the U.S. Over 400 of her poems are in journals and anthologies, including Iconoclast, The California Quarterly, Main Street Rag, The Kentucky Review, and The Random House Treasury of Light Verse. Marjorie lives with her husband in Denver. They have six grandchildren.