​Far in the Old Homesteader’s Field, by Kathryn Winograd

River of Egrets, photography by Kathryn Winograd (USA) contemporary

​Far in the Old Homesteader’s Field
  
the elk wake me. Cold morning, early fire. 
As if the world should be beautiful here, now, 
 
cloud bank portending not snow 
but the glaze of cow fences, my finger burn of cold.
 
Amid the world burning, amid this razing,
this moment’s abyss turns me back to naked trees in white sunlight.
 
How can I speak this in another way? 
Flute, piccolo, wild coyote din: other worldly
 
the elk blend into the dim fields, and I see them 
as I want: full racked, prow-necked, their breath like pillows 
 
of steam. And now, the heart pins itself to the snowy egrets 
I found in a morning river drifting long from here, 
 
all the darkness I spilled into the water still 
summer green with its snow of flotsam, the cottonwood 
 
calling out their abundance.
Do you hear them in the river light? 
 
Let there be gold in white feathers, let 
there be moments we wake up out of our silence, 
 
like now: the elk in song they teach us, the gully 
just below.

Kathryn Winograd
 
Kathryn Winograd is a happy retiree from forty years of teaching. A lifelong poet, and then essayist, and now, too, photographer, she wanders the banks of the South Platte River in Colorado and the meadows of the old 1800s homesteader, who once wagon-drove the milk of his cowherd up the road I walk on to the old Cripple Creek and Victor railroad along Phantom Canyon. She is the author of several poetry and creative nonfiction books. Her most recent book, This Visible Speaking: Catching Light Through The Camera’s Eye, (The Humble Essayist Press)  is a hybrid of poetry, prose, and photography