Nestled amongst the Rockies' wild grace

we lounge on the banks of Goose Creek in the sun’s warm embrace.

Where ripples spread like tales across the surface

and my purpose grows amorphous. 

We traverse miles through the Rio Grande’s waters, 

my only vocation: one of nature’s daughters.

Pursuing the elusive, ever-changing tide,

we out-wade the mud at its rise.

Overturning stone to match the hatch,

I trust you if my line does catch.

Tiny flies, all tied in an art, 

feel like relics, threads of your heart. 

Fingers caress my soul’s transparency sheet,

as my roll cast lands where the shadows meet.

You tell me we’ll have to work on that

and there I am! Getting too attached!

A dance commences where patience and skill coincide

and cicadas waltz on the gold dust ridgeline as secrets confide.

You– wise in the breeze, 

capture my heart with an intuitive ease. 

With every cast and every murmured name,

there’s an unspoken finality in the river’s eternal game.

Through the canyons' quiet reverence, peals play softly off the palisades

and you ring bells for me, wishing I could’ve stayed. 

At least that’s what I tell myself–

I’ll be tucked in with the dust mites in the crannies of your bookshelf. 

Maybe that’s naive of me, hoping to be remembered in thought,

slip me between the currents? A memory sought? 

Singing in the Tommy Knocker Tavern,

your coffee cup set next to mine, such a lovely pattern.

There’s a haven where my memories are stashed 

that lives in The Willows where laughter amassed.

A slice of me that forever resides at Goose Creek Road, 

And to you– not all that is owed. 

There will always be Tommy twirling Sav in the orange glow, 

and Justin Townes Earle playing on the radio 

in a town where it's day all day in the daytime

and Cotton’s posse reacts to the bring-in chime.