Poem #5 -- Lake Powell Reveries

In 2003 I spent a week aboard a houseboat on Lake Powell as part of an active, outdoor Elderhostel program. Rather than sleep in the crowded compartment on the boat with five roommates, I opted to take my thin mattress onto shore each night and sleep under the stars since there were no bugs and no threat of rain. In the photo below you can see the houseboats on the shore to the right. There are photos of me driving the boat, climbing a boulder clog, and kayaking the narrow slot canyons in the photo column to the right. Lake Powell, after six years of drought, was 100 feet below normal pool level, exposing areas of Glen Canyon that had been under water for 40 years, providing even more exploration opportunities.

It was a marvelous five nights under the vast star-studded sky (people pay big bucks for five-star accommodations, but for no extra cost, I enjoyed million star accommodations!) Each morning upon awakening, lines of a poem sped through my mind and I jotted them down, and by the end of the week, the following poem was born.

Lake Powell Reveries

Atop the hillside, red sand my bed,
blazing stars enshroud my head,
houseboat below on lapping sand,
Gregory Butte commanding the land.



Eyes weary, I fight sleep off
for awesome firmament engenders thought
of places distant, of adventures near,
of family and friends, of love, of fear,
of earth's great circle spinning here
amongst this starry cosmic sphere,



until thoughts cease and sleep takes hold
in wafting breeze and pleasant cold,
and dreams supplant what eyes did gaze
as kayak and houseboat toppled waves,
of Glen Canyon's glory, long concealed,
by multi-year drought, now newly revealed,
its soaring, timeless, sheer-wall cliffs,
canvas for ageless petroglyphs,
its sandstone flats where dinosaurs trod,
its slot canyons choked with boulder clog.



Till sunlight rises and full moon sinks
below azure waters etched with pink
and dazzling sunshine casts its sheen
painting red rock aglow and white rock agleam,
bathing Navaho Mountain in morn's new gold,
reminding of tales the ancients told,
flaunting coyote tracks ringing my bed,
testament that wildness is not dead.

My rousing mind celebrates all it sees,
till swarming gnats end my reveries,
and back to the houseboat I retreat
to forever relish Lake Powell memories.

copyright 2003 by Chuck Morlock