Poems by Ingrid Keriotis

Pebble Creek, Montana

by Ingrid Keriotis

From Canary Summer 2019

Ingrid lives in the Wolf Creek watershed not far from the creek’s headwaters at 3,000 feet in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Her landscape is one of abundant pines and cedars, bobcats and mule deer, and a rich red dirt that sticks like crazy to boots in winter.

I need to get ready to teach
but I’m in a room cluttered and small
with no eraser for the scribbled-on whiteboard.
I walk between battered tables in dim light, squinting.

Then, suddenly, oddly, my name is called.
My eyes flutter open.
I’m awake but so groggy it hurts.
“Quick,” I hear, “it’s a moose.”

I struggle with the zipper and poke my head
out of the tent into the cool air.

I see him, ambling along the stream
with awkward grace.
Dark and tall, he steps among the young willows,
legs bending like sticks in water.

The morning meadow awakens
into wet exuberance
and my ambition is replaced by elements:
hooves in grass,
a brightening sky, a ceremony of birds.