I’ve come into Plains country

Here, enter
the shadow-cloud
where degrees
drop

and petrichor’s curtain
barricades the path
that spreads her wide.

Skyward knees reveal
crest toward west,
the burden these valleys hide –
a translucent virga veil.

Her piñón dotted pubis
wets aquifer where
cottonwoods sip upon
buried lips.

Meanwhile distant mountain
reminds, only one more night
to feel this dusk gilded air.

Even though
you’ve been waiting,
iridescent stranger.

Don’t worry.
This moment
won’t be your last.

So speak –
to that cloud
breaking
silence.


finestra

Our Forest artfully heavens
go tell it to her mountain
no lost-child in woods
she makes up her own mind
to easily find
her soul to keep

Kindred-spirit meets her mountainside
for esta chica
found her own way
during golden dusk hour
where minds bend
loosely
luz
soled path
readily says “Mine”
¡Vaya
encuentro

Finally
ella pierde su vacilación;
she bids herself, “Go:
alma encantada”
forested, raised, shorn
por fin, una mente abierta

Mind-window wide
finestra asks – can you see the forest through the trees?
For the least of these
apertures. Lose yourself
soul searcher, as you have done for me.
Go as a forest
mining the trees together,
soulfully too, we can create a common goal.
Find what you may –
or lose your dream-doms
like a house built on sand, and not built where your roots ought grow.

And into the forest I go
to lose my mind
and find my soul.
John Muir.

_____________________
Shelli Rottschafer (she/her/ella) completed her doctorate from the University of New Mexico in 2005 in Latin American Contemporary Literature. From 2006 until 2023 Rottschafer taught at a small liberal arts college in Michigan. Summer 2023 she began her low-residency MFA in Creative Writing with an emphasis in Poetry at Western Colorado University, Gunnison. Together with her partner and rescue pup; she resides in Louisville, Colorado & El Prado, Nuevo México.