First View- Chicago Lakes, by Kenneth Chamlee

Storm in the Rocky Mountains—Mt. Rosalie, by Albert Bierstadt (USA) 1866

First View- Chicago Lakes

Sleet needles past my fastened collar
as we rise into the house of rain.
Mr. Byers of the Denver News 
has horsed us up this flyspeck path
with avowals of Alpine views but
now is silent. I think he has missed
the spur trail. My blood is gelid,
fingers numb beyond recovery.
Clouds tickle and drip and when we crest 
this timbered ridge I must ask that—Oh!
Sublime cirque! The Alps surpassed again!
Stay the mules—I must—I need my paints, 
stool. Fifteen minutes, please you; see how
the near lake mirrors the breaking storm               
with light fine as milkweed fluff, that one 
pearled peak soft as the edge of heaven!

Kenneth Chamlee

Kenneth Chamlee is Emeritus Professor of English at Brevard College in North Carolina.  His poems have appeared in The North Carolina Literary Review, Cold Mountain Review, Ekphrasis, and many others.  He won  ByLine Magazine's National Poetry Chapbook Competition (Absolute Faith, 1999), and the Longleaf Press Poetry Chapbook Competition (Logic of the Lost, 2001).  His poems have appeared in six editions of Kakalak: An Anthology of Carolina Poets. He is currently working on a poetic biography of painter Albert Bierstadt. Learn more at www.kennethchamlee.com.