.

Canyon

I’m traveling on a road down which I’m cast,
a road that I am fitted for, no doubt,
since I can see in arid skies white buffaloes,
and humpbacks breaching from basaltic dirt.

And too I can imagine I’m a fossil,
straining my scapulas to almost breaking
to rise reborn, some tortured Dantean figure,
to breathe once more the air where once were seas.

I walk along and scale the red escarpments
and think of wind and ice and flowing water,
of how to capture canyon in one word.
It starts inside the hollow of my throat,

but like the crescent, falls into the dusty
west where jewels and pools and other treasure
lies buried in the dark Precambrian,
or somewhere in my brain’s own unconformities.

.

.

Brian Palmer’s chapbook, Prairiehead, was published by Kelsay Books in 2023. He is the editor of the literary journal, THINK, and currently lives in Juneau, Alaska. 

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4 Responses

  2. Brian Yapko

    Brian, I really enjoy blank verse and your poem is simply beautiful — the imagery is vivid (a fossil reborn… superb!) and I am impressed by your stunning use of meter. The language is so gorgeous there’s no need for rhyme. There are some contexts where, as here, blank verse is simply the right choice. In fact, rhyme would have made this meditation overly cloying. A very nice touch to add a foot to the last line to manifest your “brain’s own unconformities.” I think this is a marvelous piece and I hope to see more of your work.

    Reply
  3. Paul Freeman

    Some timeless personificatiin and imagery imagery brings rocks, fossils and geological formations to life.

    Great stuff, Brian.

    Reply
  4. Margaret Coats

    Brian, the motion and corresponding emotion in your poem are intriguing. The first line suggests “downcast” as the mood, and the travel appears to go down into the canyon in stanzas 1 to 2, perhaps to climb out in stanzas 2-3 (rising reborn and scaling escarpments), and fall back in stanza 4 to lie buried. The process is both a physical journey and a mental one. The words “crescent” and “unconformities” have meanings mathematical and geophysical. How to capture “canyon” in one word is an obvious conundrum. It is one word–and the title of your poem using more words to portray it. You capture my interest!

    Reply

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