Poem By Judy Lehmkuhl
I stand on the autumn-warmed tundra
Pelted by graupel falling straight down
Listening to the bull elk bugle
Mid-September
Rocky Mountain National Park
First curve west of the Alpine Visitor Center
Wyoming’s Snowy Range
Heart’s home, thirty-five miles north
Beyond layers of grey hills
The air is fresh and cool, not yet cold
Still just a trace of summer’s warmth
Still, not a trace of autumn’s wind
The trail crosses over a steep shoulder of tundra
Punctuated by spruce krummholz
Spending centuries of courage to venture this high
Willow green leaves
Turned red and gold by last night’s frost
Warming the tundra with color
For life that was stolen by cold
Fluffy white heads of Geum seeds
Backlit by the waning sun
Scarlet fernlike fronds of Potentilla leaves
Sedges, brown and pale gold
A surprising gift– Arctic Gentians
Cool beauties in creamy white and navy blue
The flowers that end the summer, signaling
The growing season is through
Plop Plop …and then the deluge
Graupel falling straight down like rain
Round and icy like hail
Soft and white like snow
Melting in moments
Forming curling burbling rivulets
Flowing down the slope toward
The Poudre River Valley a mile below
Softly, almost unheard, and then louder
Comes the bugle of a bull elk in rut
Proclaiming his love and longing
Just around the shoulder of the hill
Or echoing from the valley way down, down
That sound, that hot, throaty expression
Refined by distance and drenching
Combed by the trees and grasses
To a trumpet-like, flute-like tone
Because of the evanescent nature of time
Quickly moving, shifting, changing
Twisting and turning
Like the storm clouds above us
Pregnant with their burdens
Of graupel and rain and snow
Moments tend to pass unnoticed
Or glimpsed out of the corner of an eye
Passing us by
But this one catches me by surprise
I stop here, silent, still
Having a moment
I stand on the autumn-warmed tundra
Pelted by graupel falling straight down
Listening to the bull elk bugle…