by Paul J. Willis
Monkeyflower crowds the foot of a waterfall
(those buttercup faces, up to something),
and a dipper flies the bends of the creek
down to a veil of mountain hemlock.
Overhead, granite climbs
to its appointed place in the sky.
Once, above that mountaintop,
a red-tailed hawk nested itself in pure air,
its feathers flapping on the wind
like a flag of no nation I know.
—Hoover Wilderness