John W. Schouten
The limbs of the sycamore flatten
out against this Utah sky
like the lines of a road map.
There’s a breeze.
I can almost smell the distant
blackness, the rising Columbia.
At night sometimes it turns
on itself, flows backward
seeking its source,
and the black-mouthed Chinook
ride it home. I’ve seen it
from a car window sailing
down the gorge, waves and debris
rolling gently upstream,
silver backs lapping the surface,
going home.
That dark eastward flow .
John W. Schouten