"Painting Summer" by Tricia Knoll, Frequent Contributor

Painting Summer

                Sisters, Oregon

By Tricia Knoll

To paint this place

silver is glint on pine needles,

work for moon on woods.

Light vanilla for cracks

in shifting continents

of ponderosa bark.

Ochre orange and red pumice

cinder roads bend, flame orange

for Indian paint brush

and alpenglow’s thin birdsong.

Deep blacks wrought-iron

cowboys, bronco busting, crusted wire

to underbelly of frog,

juniper twists, skink’s tail,

night’s plangent soft song

to star holes,

Late afternoon wind

sun-shifts, scours trees, sweat and grasses

white like the eye of mountains,

slow snow melt riffling

cold as the dog shakes,

under rumble of blue pick-up trucks.

Slather on rusted gates creaking opening, 

clanging shut where brown cows follow  

zipper-green creeks and sorrel horses blow hot.

A grasshopper splats on the boardwalk.

The wild turkey lumbers up

a steep gravel road without shade.

Two black cats

hide in sagebrush

from my wet brush.

Poet’s Notes: Sisters (pictured) is a beautiful spot in Oregon just over the mountains from Portland.