#51 El Bosque del Apache by Carol Moscrip

heaven must be made of this floodplain,
constantly streaming in broad ponds
darker blue in patches than the high desert sky
ripples tripling their patterns
sunlit brilliance on the flow
a curtain of rusty salt cedar
thistle heads starched on their stems
a circumference of mallards
rufous tail of Copper’s Hawk
flashes in and out of sight
white-barred Harris Hawk’s dark kites
swooping on air tides, let loose over the breeze
black-masked Sandhill Cranes,
six fingered wings spread,
thrash the marsh in a mob,
sly Kingfishers, caped in celadon,
stalk clumped reeds,
stabbing eyes of slow frogs,
a Great Blue Heron on one leg
holds its breath for eternity
as snow geese settle in by the cloudsful,
in the distance, shadow-rumpled foothills,
seashell-laid mesas, wave-signed bluffs,
dark cones beyond —
bison-clouds trail by

—

Carol Moscrip, a Stanford graduate with a M.A. from the University of California at Santa Barbara, has lived in Albuquerque for over 30 years, during which time she has been active in the local poetry community and has worked as a teacher of writing at high school and university levels. She is the author of four chapbooks and a book of poems, Straw. Her work has most recently appeared in Malpaís Review, Adobe Walls, and Beatlick News as well as in these anthologies: Fixed and Free Poetry Anthology, Harwood Anthology, The Spirit That Wants Me.

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