Glacial Erratic

A Haiku

Stranded by the stream
granite etched by ancient ice
warms in summer light.

 

Guest Poet Carlee Spears

Tiger

Stealthy, beautiful

Hunting, running, stalking

Striped hunter, apex predator

Carnivore

By Carlee Spears

Note: Carlee's poem is an acrostic poem. She is 14 years old and is the niece of Steven Veatch. 

Guest Poet Carlee Spears

The Serengeti’s Shadow

Protecting the family

Roar echoing through the heat

Elephants give them wide berth

Dark mane flowing

Ambush in the golden grass

Teeth like ivory daggers

Onward the lionesses strike together

Roar the shakes the land

By Carlee Spears

Note: Carlee's poem is an acrostic poem. She is 14 years old and is the niece of Steven Veatch. 

Guest Poet Carlee Spears

 Deer

Skittish proud
Browsing watching standing
Forests thickets antlers watchful
Standing guarding bounding
Father protecting
Majestic

By Carlee Spears

Note: Carlee's poem is the Diamanté form. She is 14 years old and is the niece of Steven Veatch. 

Guest Poet Wyatt Spears

Donkey

Humble, grey

Trudging, straining, enduring

Hooves, rocks, veins, ore

Weighing, gleaming, tempting

Radiant, precious

Gold!

By Wyatt C. Spears

A donkey and a prospector in Cripple Creek, Colorado—the World’s Greatest Gold Camp. Photo courtesy of the Cripple Creek District Museum. CCDM 808.

Note: Wyatt's poem is the Diamanté form. He is 16 years old and is the nephew of  Steven Veatch. 

Smilodon: A Primal Portrait

Ancient chills cling to the earth as a heavy silence descends

Beneath gnarled branches, the very air thickens with dread

Crouched in the shadows, the Smilodon prepares its assault

Draped in pale gold, it haunts the brush with lethal grace

Eyes, intently focused, fix on an unseen prey

Fangs, curved like ivory daggers, catch the light

Grim power vibrates through the coarse grain of its mane

Hunched shoulders ripple; a tidal wave of force held in check

Imposing in shadow, it carves a dark shape through the green

Jaws, built for the kill, remain locked in a terrifying calm

Killing intent burns deep, the singular spark in its soul

Low to the earth, it creeps forward—a silent, golden threat

Muscles coil like wire, every fiber primed for the attack

Near the tree line it waits, a phantom in its domain

Outlining the distance, it measures the distance of its prey

Powerful forelegs, anchored deep, prepare to launch the strike

Raw sinew stretches as the great cat breaks into a sprint

Saber-teeth, the namesake of terror, are bared to the sky

Thick-necked and brutal, it slams into the side of its mark

Unstoppable momentum carries the hunter through the kill

Vales and frozen forests echo with the sounds of the struggle

Warrior of a lost world, a living embodiment of prehistoric power

Xenacious hunger drives its existence, a constant, primal need

Yielding its spirit to the cycle of life, the titan stands tall

Zenith of its era, it vanishes into the mists of time

Smilodon from 1903. By Charles Robert Knight.
Public Domain.

The Bone Hunter’s Odyssey

Moving across the vast arid expanse,
the fossil-hunter walks where
wind sculpts the sandstone cliffs.
She moves, a dark silhouette
against the open sky, her gaze
probing the land for ancient whispers.
 
Each step brings her closer to
forgotten worlds, a boot print left
where titans once roamed.
In her hands, the map is a mere outline,
but her heart knows the language
of the earth.
 
The first find is modest: a piece of a tooth,
jagged, yellowed, kissed by time’s
slow grind. She kneels, brushing away eons of dust
with reverence— as though waking a sleeping king.
 
The storms come fast in the badlands,
thunder growling like the ghosts of giants,
and still she presses on, for somewhere
beneath the layers of sandstone,
a story waits, curled in the rock’s embrace.
 
One evening, the setting sun paints the cliffs in fire,
and there it is: a curve of rib, a fragment of a skull,
a whisper of something vast, something
that once thundered across the land now hushed
beneath the layers of hard sediment.
 
She digs until the moon rises, chipping away millennia
with steady hands, the fossil emerging like a secret
told too long ago to matter anymore.
  
What was it, she wonders, this beast whose bones
she cradles? A scavenger, a predator, a titan
of green forests? She dreams of it moving—
great muscles rippling under plated skin,
a roar that could split the silence of time.
 
When the season ends, she packs her finds,
loading crates with the weight of history.
The land watches her go, its treasures
uncovered its riddles offered but never
fully solved.
 
And as she drives away, dust rising in the wake
of her truck, she glances in the rearview
mirror, knowing she'll return. For the earth whispers
to her an endless call to adventure.
 
By Steven Wade Veatch