Muddy Bank

Phillip Sterling is the author of And Then Snow (Main Street Rag, 2017) and Amateur Husbandry (Mayapple 2019). His chapbook of February poems, Short on Days, is forthcoming in early 2020 from Main Street Rag.

Debora Chappell

It is Autumn

Dad, it is autumn here. The acequias are
lined with flame yellow cottonwoods and 
the robin’s egg blue sky hangs over
the mountain. I breathe like you taught me.
It calls to me every autumn, so I hike
the mountain trail as far as I can, then
sit and breathe as you taught me. Birds
ready themselves for winter as does 
the blue-tailed lizard sunning next to me.
Unafraid, he watches me just before a
deer tiptoes in and freezes. I move slowly
back down the alluvial plain and breathe
like you taught me. I follow the alluvial
plain to the river and revel in the smell
of roasting chile. It is autumn here.
Winter will come soon enough
and I breathe as you taught me.

———————————————————————-

Deborah Chappell has a BA in English and an MA in Creative Writing-Poetry. Her work has appeared in The Denver Quarterly.