March’s prompt from YCP is, “Tell a Hard Story.”
Jeff Thompson
Psalm 104, Localized
God, I thank you
For these hills that ring our valley,
gently sloping
silent sentinels,
encircling,
sculpted with primordial chisel
of bypassing glacial shards
rushing to the sea.
Your sun volleyed seasonally
Between the Yakima and Rattlesnake ridges.
In the spring you clothe them emerald
in summer terra cotta
against the azure sky.
Then at last you send them to hibernate
Wrapped securely in cotton.
Always they are here, Lord,
seasonally attired,
silent messengers
declaring your grandeur.
God, I thank you
For the rivers that water our valley,
playground of deer and bighorn sheep
home of rattlesnake and eagle.
In the spring their waters rise,
swollen, joyful
with mountain snowmelt,
In the summer they relax,
contemplating town, freeway, farm, ranch
gently winding toward the Columbia,
to be swallowed by your great ocean.
God, I thank you
For homing me here.
Help me to see always and anew
These icons of their Maker,
You.
Ed Stover
FEBRUARY
Ages ago, they called it
the Month of Purity,
or the Month of Mud,
even, for god’s sake,
the Month of Cabbage!
Mostly, it’s the Month of Ice—
ice and snow shrouded
in a fog of uncertainty,
a condition I understand
since I’ve never been certain
of anything except putting
one foot in front of the other,
knowing that is
what it will take
to scale the next mountain.
Terry E. Lockett
Bachelor Creek
for Annette
Along Bachelor Creek
At the end of November
You slip between thin bars
Of willow cages contorted to catch
The last starved rays of sun;
Past huge yellow webs
Of poison ivy thrown over stumps,
Streaming from trees
Riveted by woodpeckers.
Sparrows puff and huddle,
Dot the wires above you.
You’ve stirred leaves in your path
Revealed a pocket below
Where a cottontail curls in warm darkness.
Up the stream, underneath a jumble of bulrushes and mud,
muskrats roll tight in their bunker.
In the bare field beside you,
A blur of cattle, horses hunched in shaggy coats;
One liver chestnut draws close.
You stick your stiff red hands in your pockets.
He flares his nostrils, tosses, bolts away
Having nosed you out—
God’s only wayward creature
That must have fire to survive.