Yellowstone

Yellowstone recedes:
green hills, pine woods
and rushing, steep flowing
waterfalls - precipices -
thunder falls and
white cap rapids
tumble, roar,
rushing, foaming below;
blue-green pools,
jade pools, limped,
surface steam rising,
heat and white mists
blown by the wind;
and steaming water
bubbling, shooting,
mixing with the cold clean air,
The Grand Canyon
of the Yellowstone,
deep earth furrow, cut
and flights ofbirds;
time and distance
framed - recede -
retreating
into my rear-view mirror.

Memories retreating:
a sighting,
a seemingly peaceful grizzly
browsing the bushes
amidst red berries,
marsh streams and the yellows
of an advancing autumn;
a colder wind blows;
soon it will be winter;
Yellowstone recedes,
dropping behind
a racing autumn -
distortions
in the mirror.

Blue fringed
green ringed mountains
and lower-leafed gold
aspens and berry bushes
and smoking mud flats,
cavernous
with steaming geysers,
the geologic
volcanic underpinnings,
underground source
of threatening beauty;
geologic Yellowstone rising-growing:
white-water and steam,
brilliant sky, brilliant blue
and aspens, autumn gold
in the approaching cold;
the autumn air pervades,
winter invades...
Yellowstone,
cherished vision diminished,
winter advancing, encroaching:
Yellowstone recedes
a shimmering image, disappearing
into the rear-view mirror.