Late Fall, Prairie Creek

Winter tiptoes silently on icy, sharpclawed toes
through the steep-walled mountain valley, over peaks now rimmed with snow

On the forest floor of Prairie Creek as afternoon withdraws
I wait, the gathering of shadows pouring night across my paws

Cathedral pines of Ponderosa, whispering of Firs, and the
clattering of streams whose mountain waters chill the Earth

Gone the chatter of the Magpies, gone the golden autumn glow,
just the silhouettes of Sawtooths and of antelope below

As the starlight thickens on the paths where elk have crossed,
in the shadows pools the silence, while the branches catch the frost

The northern forest bristles in these long, October nights
to hear the clicking nails of winter scratching daybreak into ice