A late autumn evening over the Rio Grande Reservoir
The grasses, what remain of the mountain’s summer bounty, are tired and brown. Time and again they have been crushed by the weight of the early season snows, thick and moist, and still they stand tall, defiant, straight and proud, with the last of their exhausted energy, waving in the evening winds that meander up the hillside in the last of the warmth of the day. The snow has melted again. It will return before the rich earth shaded behind the tufts of grass is able to dry.
There will be another storm soon to push them back down, testing strength of wills or solid matters. I have seen through the burden of winter snow, a field void of color and life, with rocks and brush covered clean in a smooth white wash, and peaking through I see a seed head, defying the forces that claim greater than they.
And in turn, in kind, there is balance. In the seasons, the elements, the coming and going of time and growth and death, as the last of the geese congregate on the flats of the reservoir where the river and streams converge. They prepare for their long journey southward, flying low in formation of sight and sound over the bluffs above the river in the early morning as I feed the horses, listening to the distant haunting call resonating to the last of their kind remaining in the high country. Time is running out. Again.