Schneider Valley, September

by Taylor Graham

Outside our tent, ice on the water bucket,
old-paper tinge to the willow-thicket.
The creek that cuts this meadow never forgot
its snowmelt rush down Little Round Top,
snowbanks blocking the road till end of June.
And then the flowers came, so many
shades of paintbrush, larkspur, columbine –
a hiker might think he’d climbed to heaven.
Now lupine’s gone to pod, a cold easterly
rattles mules-ears along the trail. I can believe
again in snow. Time to break camp?
The raven says, “while you can, go home.”