Icicle Creek
Icicle Creek
leaving town at last
and running for the pass
the radio ringing out
“My Sweet Lord”
and it’s forest service dust
gravel rattling travel
and ragged high desert heat
roll all the windows up
even sturdy antelope
those sagebrush saints
can’t thrive long
on flatiron mirages
but marked on a survey map
there’s a reef of lodgepole pine
and a speckled trout stream
at the back of the undiscovered
so as the winds shift
and the lands begin to cool
I park and pitch a tent
at an undeveloped campsite
alone and deeply lonely
standing naked and old
I brace myself to the cold
and wash in “Icicle Creek”
—Donald E. Gasperson