And the World Moves

I’m on break from grad school,

riding with my fiancé from

Denver airport
to Steamboat Springs

to visit an old roommate.

“There are antelope in Colorado?”

I ask.

“Pronghorn” replies the driver.  

Outside the window

a new universe is unfurling,

hinting at my sheltered life.

God, those mountains…

(what do I need to call

the ones back home now?)

How they dominate, pulling

both clouds and something

in the pit of my stomach

to their earthy bulk.

Near Rabbit Ear Pass

we get out to take some photos;
in the cold, misty air,

I feel irreversibly changed.

Which is the road,

and which are the stops,

I begin to wonder.

Gazing at the grey gravity,

at the herds of pronghorn

sifting for tall grass

through diminishing snows,

I answer unexpectedly,

and the world moves under my feet.