Chalk Creek Sketches

WEST in the distance the great peaks rise; their dark forms stand
Blocked, trapezoidal, firm, as if charged with power,
The weight of the ranges behind them. Hour by hour
They wear the stifling veils of the heat and sun
In proud imperial ways, with shadows and folds
Purple-gathered; and rains and the blowing sand
Leave them austere, unmoved to gaze upon,
To draw our eyes from the shimmering tans and golds
To coolness and strength.

Even ditch water hurrying by,
Boxed in its straight-dug bed, still seems to bear
With its gliding bubbles something of mountain foam;
In its low swift flow we may even fancy we hear
Echoes of streams down sharp-riven gorges clashing,
Whitening the fretted boulders. The thin and sweet
Pipe of the desert wren may be lost in the cry
Of a wide-winged magpie, suddenly wheeling and flashing,
Strayed from some pine-rough fastness; and shining and bare
At the canyon mouth strange white cliffs gleam; at our feet
Is the swinging mesa road that will lead us there.

IN the shimmer of sun on the sand-flats prairie dogs ran,
Brown as the sand they burrow, awkwardly playing —
Fat forms scurrying, short broad tails of tan —
Where the clumps of sage and the yellow rabbit-brush
Met the dry mud banks, and the slowed stream, swaying
Wide through the marsh, cut the gravel bed by the bridge.
We came on them suddenly, over the graded ridge,
And checked our riding, all in a quick-caught hush,
Sitting there quietly, watching them as they played,
Dodging, circling in ponderous ambuscade;
Till, with a horse’s start, and a saddle’s creaking,
Panic seized them; they scattered in frantic flight;
Brown heads plunged and dived, and fat brown paunches
Bounced and tumbled down sudden tunnels, seeking
Darkness, safety — swallowed up, left and right —
All but one small hero, who, bold in fright,
Panting, stood by his hole, erect on his haunches,
Fixed there by terror or courage, a statued shape,
Black bead eyes shining, and rodent mouth agape,
Dauntlessly squeaking, squeaking.

PALE deer pressing by moonlight up white chalk gorges,
Antlers high in the brightness — to what deep glade
Silver-hushed, of aspen or alder shade
Do they hasten? What covert of pine-sweet meadow?
Is it to crop the feathery tender balls
Of thistle silk, or bells of the columbine?
Or are they hurrying, startled and half afraid
At some crisp lizard’s dart, awaked from sleeping,
Or the cream-blossomed yucca’s sharp-spiked shadow?

So white, so fairy-frail these luminous walls —
Spire and fine-drawn ridge in the mild light steeping,
Blue-folded, all unearthly — that they seem
Like some enchanted city, which a dream
Conjures, of mist transparent, to vanish soon,
Or a far, frosty landscape of the moon,
With deer, thin-antlered, delicately leaping.

DOWN from their mountain meadows come the sheep,
Fattened, sated with pasture, hundreds crowding
Woolly-herded, filling the valley’s cup
With their noise, their discordant bleating — the dust enshrouding
Their mass, slow-moving, choking the white road up;
The black-faced, black-legged lambs make a weaving border,
Running distractedly, darting with plaintive cries,
Not understanding this rudeness, not. comprehending
This sudden parting from cool known pastures and skies,
From stillness and flower-sweet grass and streams soft-falling;
The old ones steadier, patient, as if recalling
Earlier journeys, the heat and urging, the din;
Two mongrel dogs, officious, alert, keep order —
Bark at the laggards, race to the sides, forestalling
The darts for freedom, circle the stragglers in.

But the men on horseback relax; their thoughts are bending
To the dry wide streets of the summer-forgotten town:
The gaudy stores; chance chats at a wind-caught corner;
Women and children to see; the thick sweet air
And easy coolness of dim saloons; the bare
Red-painted station where the long freights jerk down
A-shriek at the tunnel, rattling down to the plain.
Soon past the curve of the road and the chalk cliff’s yonder,
Over the dusty backs of the plodding sheep,
They might even see it trailing its smoke, its wonder —
Link from the lonely world to man — the train . . .

But behind, to the West, the gray clouds gather and fill
The pointed light of the distant pass; a chill
Small wind at a breath strikes men and sheep as they go.
Sharp down the shale and the rock-bleak cirques of the summits
Are driven the first crisp flakes of the stinging snow.