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Beryl Spring

—Yellowstone National Park

Towering torrents of steam and mist
Rise next to the side of the road,
Beckoning drivers to park and trudge toward a cloud.

Roars like the noise of jet engines persist,
Crescendo their clangorous mode;
Vents firing volleys embark on cannonades loud.

Beryl Spring bubbles up pale greenish or blue
In a shallow white limestone pool,
Barreling thermal cascades to gaze at, not touch.

Smelling of sulfur, fumes foully pursue
Their guests with the grins of a ghoul;
Stinkpot putrescence pervades the outlying smutch.

Bauble set loosely in patches of pine,
Alluring pond scalding a grove,
Rumbling with magma malign
at this perilous cove.

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Margaret Coats lives in California.  She holds a Ph.D. in English and American Literature and Language from Harvard University.  She has retired from a career of teaching literature, languages, and writing that included considerable wrk in homeschooling for her own family and others.

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28 Responses

  2. Roy Eugene Peterson

    I can see the steam, feel the heat, and smell the sulphur. My senses align as the “magma maligns.” It helps that I once visited there, and you refreshed my memories.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      “Fresh” seems an unusual concept for memories of Beryl Spring, but I’m pleased to pull them up. And I like your using “maligns” as a verb for what my malign magma does. Thanks as always for your Old Faithful commenting, Roy.

      Reply
  3. Mark Stellinga

    This was somewhere I’d never visited, Margaret, until now! A rather challenging rhyme scheme and very vividly done. A+! 🙂

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thank you for the top grade and the smiling face, Mark! Yellowstone was new to me and very vividly geothermal.

      Reply
  4. Brian A. Yapko

    This is a delightful poem, Margaret, which appears much simpler than it is. The rhymes in your tercets are rigorous and have the discplined regularity of Old Faithful itself. Is a poem such as this considered ekphrastic if it describes a natural phenomenon rather than a work of art?

    I’m glad you reminder the reader to “look” but not “touch.” And I particularly admire the pun of beryl and barrel and, like Roy, can feel the heat and smell the sulphur. I have never been to Yellowstone, but I’ve been to Rotorua on New Zealand’s North Island which has volcanic features just like Yellowstone. The smell of sulphur can be overwhelming and yet there is something deeply exhilirating about the experience — especially when a geyser blows. There’s a primal quality to it — like connecting to Creation itself.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thanks, Brian, for your appreciation of rhymes and structure in this metrically somewhat explosive poem. Yellowstone’s expanse of over two million acres does have a primal quality about it. Geysers, steam spouts, hot springs, and bubbling mud pots are widely distributed within the vast forests. Little Beryl Spring has two geyser vents that blow every few seconds, which causes the jet engine noise. Yet there is a small, almost silent, fountain-like spring in the pool as well. I think of this land atop a dormant volcano as Earth not yet come to equilibrium after the Flood. Creation, in its original state, must have been peaceful and “very good,” as the Genesis account says. Events of the global Flood blew the planet apart, with aftereffects too many to mention. They’re fascinating to study, but Yellowstone is the only place where I have felt I am tangibly among them. And you are right about not touching. A 19th-century explorer, first encountering one of the hot springs, was hoping for a nice warm bath, but after burning the finger with which he tested the temperature, decided against it!

      Reply
  5. Nicole Hofmans

    This poem truly captures the mystique and raw power of Yellowstone’s Beryl Spring! The imagery is vivid, transporting the reader directly to the scene where towering steam and mist rise “next to the side of the road” and pull viewers toward the mysterious clouds. I love how you’ve personified Beryl Spring as both alluring and ominous, offering a “grin of a ghoul” with “fumes foully pursue[ing]” its guests.

    The soundscape you create is powerful too; the “roars like the noise of jet engines” and “clangorous mode” build an atmosphere filled with both energy and danger, as if the earth itself is alive and rumbling just below the surface. There’s an ominous charm in describing the spring as a “bauble” – delicate yet deceptive – set amid pine patches, where its “magma malign” bubbles beneath a serene exterior. It’s a beautiful way of capturing nature’s dichotomy, and your choice of words enhances the eerie beauty of such a dangerous yet captivating place.

    Overall, the poem’s rich language and sensory detail make it a thrilling journey through Beryl Spring, blending awe with a cautious respect for nature’s power. Wonderful work!

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Nicole, thank you so very much! You can analyze a poem briefly and elegantly, picking up on significant points, and setting out your ideas in beautiful prose that’s like a poem. I’m especially glad you noticed the “soundscape” here. That can’t show up in the photo, but it is perhaps the overwhelming impression of any visitor to Beryl Spring. We’re attracted to the site by clouds of steam visible as we drive by, but once we get out of the car and walk closer, the roar dominates. The earth seems to rumble and threaten eruption. As you say, it’s nature’s dichotomy of beauty and danger. My husband and I stopped there three times during our days at Yellowstone, seeing Beryl Spring at different times of the day and in different light qualities. Always the mystique!

      Reply
  6. Isabella

    Thank you Margaret for this brilliant poem! I have never visited Yellowstone park or indeed anywhere remotely like it. But now I feel I have had a tantalising taste of this fantastic place! Your wonderful word choices, alliteration and onomatopoeic descriptions absolutely fill one’s head with the sights and sounds of Beryl spring.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thank you, Isabella! This poem is just a morsel of the very large national park, which includes forest and lakes, hills and mountains, a spectacular river with many waterfalls, and wild animals not often seen elsewhere. But the most unusual feature is the geothermal activity close to the surface in many areas. Glad I was able to convey this bit of it to you.

      Reply
  7. Paul A. Freeman

    Oh, yes! Role over, Old Faithful.

    Love the line and a bit ‘foully pursue / Their guests with the grins of a ghoul’. What dark, yet humorous personification.

    Thanks for the read, Margaret.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Old Faithful is spectacular, and I did witness its 140-foot spire lasting about three minutes. There’s such a variety of things to see at Yellowstone that I chose a less usual one to write about. At Beryl Spring, visitors can walk on a slightly elevated wood platform above its outflow stream–and there one can indeed feel “foully pursued” as the sulfurous mist changes direction erratically. Thanks for your comment, Paul!

      Reply
  8. Dan Tuton

    Margaret, you capture well the dramatic juxtaposition of beauty and unbridled, even threatening, power that is the reality of Yellowstone. I especially enjoyed the effective alliteration in the final stanza. Very evocative–it brought me back to the bracing shudder of seeing it for the first time.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thanks, Dan. The poem came from a first-time visit, and I’m glad to have been able to call your own to mind. There’s so much to see, and as usual in many parks, the signs say to stay on designated paths. But I never before saw a warning to turn back immediately if the ground under your feet seems hot!

      Reply
  9. Joseph S. Salemi

    This is quite an intense description, and it makes the reader feel the peril and unpredictability of being near such hot springs and geysers. I think Margaret deliberately creates uncertainty by the way in which she varies the meter, where we begin to expect a certain regular pattern but are suddenly hit with an unexpected shift. As Nicole says, there is an atmosphere of both “energy and danger.”

    There are many dactyls here (“Towering torrents of steam”, “Barrelling thermal cascades,” “Stinkpot putrescence pervades”) but they are linked with variant rhythms. That is the basic point: the eruptions of these natural hot springs are generally predictable, but not always.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Very much the case, Joe. Even my plan of mixed meter turns unscannable in the signature “Beryl Spring” line. That’s a risk, but as you say, eruptions ae not always predictable. And risk in this area can be far beyond the best calculated expectation. We heard of one recent disaster when a dog was let out of a truck without a leash. The animal jumped into a thermal pool rather larger than Beryl Spring, and the owner followed immediately to try to prevent serious injury. But the dog was dead before the owner reached it, and the man is now blind and disabled. This kind of thing calls for intense description! Appreciate your comment with appropriate analysis.

      Reply
  10. Warren Bonham

    I always learn something new with your poems. I’ve even been to Yellowstone but apparently I missed one of the hilites of the park. Your words brought it to life for me (so now I don’t have to make the trek back to the park). Thanks for another entertaining education.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thanks, Warren. I always appreciate your comments. I’m sure you saw plenty of impressive things at Yellowstone; it is huge. I was just lucky that Beryl Spring was not many miles from where we drove in and out of the park each day we were there. Glad my observations and these expressions of them made it a lively highlight for you!

      Reply
  11. C.B. Anderson

    The elemental forces that, in certain places, are close to the surface, require chthonic language for them to be described adequately, and this we have here.

    Reply
  12. Margaret Coats

    Thank you, C. B. I was glad to get a photo that showed the chthonic elemental forces close to the surface, with blue sky above and evergreens surrounding the bare overheated gravel where the thermal spring spews its ghoulish fumes!

    Reply
  13. Adam Sedia

    You marvelously capture the majesty of the spring (geyser?) steaming. I’ve never been to Yellowstone, but I feel you’ve painted a vivid enough picture for me to grasp the scene. My favorite part about the poem, though, is how it gradually and subtly moves from the majestic vision to a sensation of the awesome, potentially destructive forces behind it. This is a terrible beauty, to be not a little feared, and the sentiments it inspires echo Burke’s views of the sublime.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thank you, Adam, for suggesting “the sublime” to characterize Beryl Spring. This little-known geyser attracts visitors only because it is near the road, but having stopped several times unnecessarily, I’d say sublimity is what I and others found in the sight and the sound.

      Theoretically, a geyser features both a spring and spouts of steam, but both are not always apparent. I also visited the famed Old Faithful, where the spring portion is invisible, and a splendid spire of steam shoots up about every 90 minutes. Here at Beryl Spring there is a pool with a constant, low and gentle spout of water coming up from it–and back at a little distance, two vents where steam and noise proceed out of rock every few seconds. And having seen a number of others, I would say geysers display sublime individuality!

      Reply
  14. Tom Rimer

    Margaret, a striking evocation of a spot I have never seen, made all the more vivid by the fact that the energy and power of the living spring are held in check, as it were, by the chaste structure of the verse form itself. Pure energy and classical restraint. What an elegant combination!

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Tom, thanks so much for finding “pure energy and classical restraint” here. That’s an elegant compliment. Very much appreciate your reading and making the effort to comment!

      Reply
  15. Pat and Harvey Branch

    Margaret, with our lack of classical education and abysmal knowledge of formal poetry constructs, we haven’t been able to fully appreciate much of your work with this group. However, ‘Beryl Springs’ is different. It’s simply beautiful and evocative. We were moved and it caused us to look back over the history of your contributions. Frankly, we were taken aback by your extended body of work in a similar genre. What pleasant reading!

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thank you, Pat and Harvey! I’m thrilled to see a comment from you. Glad you liked this poem, and glad you discovered how to view my other poems (clicking on my name in the poet bio at the end of a poem). If there are others you particularly like, I’d love to know. Each is open for comment indefinitely. Best wishes to you both and look forward to the upcoming visit!

      Reply

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