In order to view this poem as the author intended it to appear, we suggest reading it on a computer screen or in the landscape orientation on your phone.

Serendipity
Gary Harrison

—for Marlys

bluish-grey clouds
heavy strands
of stratocumulus
backlit with white
streaks of sunlight
press down just above
Rio Grande Valley

translucent curtains
of intermittent rain
sweep over the roadway
and thirsty carpet
of dried grasses
mottled with junipers
and rabbitbrush

we woke to snowfall
early this morning
a low-hanging fog
hiding the mountain ridge
below Taos Ski Valley
where wet snow clung
to bare cottonwoods

where we embraced
inside the casita
as warm yellow light
from the corner fireplace
snaked along the vigas
and stirred the earthy scent
of stream water

with fresh memories
of Rio Grande canyon
the steep cliffs
piñon and sagebrush
stacks of broken basalt
boulders polished black
by the river

where two Canada geese
wary but unafraid
took turns bobbing
their tuxedoed heads
in a deep eddy
beside the white rapids
rushing below us

what serendipity
in this wind-blown
water-worn canyon
on our anniversary day
to meet this pair
working and playing together
like us, for life

—
Gary Harrison was a professor of English at the University of New Mexico for thirty years, specializing in British Romantic Poetry. He is the author of Wordsworth’s Vagrant Muse (1994), the co-editor of two anthologies of World Literature, and the author of many articles on English Romantic poetry, focusing most recently upon the work of John Clare and its relation to ecological thought. Three of his recent poems appear in A Wind Blows Through Us (Mercury Heartlink, 2021), an anthology of New Mexico poetry. He currently spends his time hiking, writing poetry, and writing lyrics for music that he composes on guitar and piano.

Know anyone who might appreciate reading Gary’s poem?
Why not share the link to this page?

Have you read these poems:
The Fleeting Things by Debbie K. Trantow
Wake by William Orem

Table of Contents