Colorado Ascent

Sky-bound ridges beckon,
drawing the Earth into sharp relief,
each peak a timeless mystery etched in stone.
 
Granite boulders pierce the clouds,
their solemn silence roaring like thunder,
their immensity carved by the breath of time.
 
Pine forests unfurl, rooted deep,
while alpine lakes reflect the heavens
with clarity unsurpassed.
 
Faintly gleaming in forgotten veins,
gold murmurs of a bygone frenzy,
yet the mountains endure,
unyielding to the grasp of greed.
 
This is the land of rising—
where the damp soil breathes renewal
and birdsong arcs toward open skies;
where rivers leap from cliffs,
their spray soaring toward light.
 
As you climb, the trails coil upward,
the air thins to whispers,
each breath a praise to the heights,
each view a call to reach beyond.
Colorado—where the mountains stretch skyward,
and our spirits follow, ever rising.

By Steven Wade Veatch

First published in Colorado Life May/June 2025

 

 

Extinction: Fossils of A Vanished Future

—By Steven Wade Veatch

They ruled the world once,
lumbering giants beneath a fiery sun,
that trampled ferns 
with their colossal strides.

No one mourned their passage:
A death simply by a massive rock and chance.
As the world burned, the sky turned to ash.
Next the Earth froze.
What remained was cold silence;
the stillness of a kingdom gone.

Now we walk on this earth, 
masters of fire and thought,
builders of cities that stretch to the sky—
where we weave our dreams into metal and glass.
But listen closely—the oceans rise 
like ancient prophets while nature
whispers warnings.

We are the asteroid now, 
the architects of our own destruction. 
Not by fire from the sky, 
but by the slow smothering of our planet.

Will we fall as the dinosaurs did, 
victims of a fate we cannot outrun?
Or will we rise, learning from the bones of beasts
and the spotlight of our science?

The dinosaurs left no poets, 
no songs, no warnings carved on stone.
When we vanish will there be silence once more?
Or will the Earth find a new voice,
one that hums with life that does not know us,
does not need us, and does not contemplate
what we could have been?

The final moments of a T. rex during the start of the
Cretaceous extinction. Image by the author using
AI.

Evening Reflections: Duck Lake

Late in the day the sun sighed.
The lake sparkled as if polished.
The ducks did not notice
a salmon-colored sky as it unfolded—
but a loon did.

As the sun fell from the sky
a fading twilight filled the horizon.
At family gatherings a campfire 
blazed and crackled, 
filling the air with popping 
embers and wisps of smoke.
Dancers arrive in the shadows,
people of the past, 
linking hands, they spin 
to the plaintive fire’s song.
And then they are gone.

Nothing is the same:
the empty swing, 
a broken lawn chair,
the vacant cottage. 

A restless loon flutters, 
its wings beat anxiously,
as it desperately tries to hold 
onto the last remnants 
of the fading day, 
unwilling to succumb 
to the encroaching night.

By Steven Wade Veatch

The Spotted Salamander

In the heart of the dense forest, 
a gentle creek trickles, creating 
a soothing melody. Sunlight filters 
through the thick foliage, casting 
shimmering shadows 
that dance on the ground.

Under the lush canopy, 
where the air carries the earthy 
scent of decaying leaves, moss, 
and damp soil, the spotted salamander 
lives in a tranquil trance 
beneath a blanket of leaf litter.

Adorned with vibrant yellow spots, 
like flickering stars in the night sky, 
the salamander's skin is a tapestry 
of nature's design.

It’s as if the spots are sentinels
of the woodland's spring birth 
and blossoming of new life. 
And when the forest thrives,
so do we, as our lives blend
harmoniously below
the azure skies.

—Steven Wade Veatch

A World of Lake and Sky

By Steven Wade Veatch

A crazed wind
    made the afternoon wild.
        A rhythmic    slosh,    slosh,    slosh
of waves crashed on a seawall
edged by rocks carpeted in moss.
Boats bobbed up and down
and rocked with the swells.

I was swept away from the 
troubles of the day
while I watched the swans swim 
into tomorrow.

Image designed by the author using AI.

Sacred Places

By Steven Wade Veatch
 
Let the baby turtle live
and the black cormorant fly,
the fresh winds blow
and let the water be clear.
 
Let the rivers flow
and the grass grow,
let waves dazzle in the sun.
 
Let me be part of the land
and aware of its life.
Let me enter these sacred places
and save them from harm. 

The author created this AI image
with the assistance of DALL·E and MS Bing.

Beside the Waterfall

Published by the Ute Country News.

 

Springtime at Grass River

Grass River Natural Area
Bellaire, MI
 

By Steven Wade Veatch
 
A whispering breeze, scented
with clean earth, moss, and fallen leaves,
calls me into the cedar swamp—a refuge
where the woods are rich and wet.
 
A path winds through a botanical spectacle:
Fiddleheads unfurl in wonder, red swamp roses
compete with shrubs, tiny white starflowers wink,
marsh marigolds bloom, and trilliums reverently nod.
 
A tapestry of green lichen covers bare tree limbs.
Delicate mosses in emerald hues flourish on fallen logs.
Tamarack needles feel like velvet.
 
An impossible number of creatures hide:
Warblers sing in sunshine fresh as spring.
Woodpeckers’ random holes dot dead trees.
A water snake patrols Finch Creek.
Frogs sit in a pool waiting to chant tonight.
 
The landscape opens as Grass River gently glides
over sediments of sand, silt, and mud—flowing
at the nexus of climate change, and as the moments pass,
we are brought closer to the day of no return.

Finch Creek

Grass River Natural Area, Michigan
By Steven Wade Veatch
 
Calm currents glide over a sandy bottom creek bed.
Layered, like the strata of the earth, with sand silt, 

and windblown dust—pulverized
from ancient grinding glaciers.
 
Stretches of the creek flow through a latticework
of fallen trees. Plants grow so lush they rival a rainforest.
Moisture nurtures spongy mounds of moss
that cover the ground like carpet.
Lichens paint the trees while a breeze moves their branches.
Songbirds flit in the shadows. Melodic chirps
proclaim their presence.
 
A sanctuary, yet everything changes—
day, night, seasons,
the climate,
you, and

me.

Finch Creek, Grass River Natural Area.
Photo date May, 2022 by S. W. Veatch.

The Last Frog of Summer

By Steven Wade Veatch

I. Wind

By the pond, I listened to the tumult of the wind 
and tried to distinguish each sound that swirled 
through the spruce and tamarack trees. 
It sounded like twisted whispers through a hollowed-out log. 
Breezes made the branches lash and tremble. 
The animated leaves fluttered and danced in the wind. 
The air charged with the fresh scent of ozone after a rain—
nature’s purifying incense. The drag of the wind 
made slight waves over the open pond.

II. Pond

The pond is an expression of the intersection 
of the water table and the landscape. Slabs of sandstone
border the pond. One slab reveals where ancient waves 
once pounded the beach with conviction—leaving ripple marks 
in the sand, now lithified. Green leafy blades of wild iris reach skyward 
while tips of emerald stalks are covered with crowns of purple blossoms.
Little white flowers rise like periscopes.  Cushy, green mounds of moss 
and wetland plants soak up the land’s stress. 
They filter and purify the water and fill the wells. 
Here is the heart of an active ecosystem that provides 
a certain wisdom as the circle of life plays out.

III. Frog

A Northern Green Frog settles in on a wet rock 
and lingers after a light rain has ended.  
An oakleaf fell to the ground near the frog, 
and on the leaf’s surface beads of rainwater 
scatter sunlight like an opal. 

IV. Brevity

Although the transitory nature of the water adds 
Life in the elemental, living in the elemental, 
to the mystique of the moment, I am moved 
from my comfort zone by the bitter winds of my own brief time
as I hand over another day—moving closer to the end, 
just like the water beads as they give up another molecule 
with each passing moment, until they slowly evaporate 
into oblivion. What is there after that moment comes? 
Will it be as quiet as the steep silence of the moon, 
or will it be darkness as unrevealing as the night?

Grape Creek

 Florissant, Colorado

 

Rippling over small round rocks
in the chilled afternoon light
of Spring’s sunshine
the cold creek flows—
core of everything.
 
It exists against the odds
surrounded by green grass
lush from winter snows.
 
Twisting and turning like ribbon
it whorls into wonder where
birds splash, dip, flick, and flutter.
In casual poses, they gossip gamely
delivering their news.
 
The water moves beyond the birds
free across acres of time, and
releases me from disfiguring cities
and heaps of numbing concrete.

This poem first appeared in Colorado Life.

Grape Creek flowing through the
Florissant Fossil Beds National
Monument. Photo by S. W. Veatch

Homestead

By Steven Wade Veatch

Follow the trail 
to the homestead
where Grape Creek glitters
and the green grass 
waves in the wind.
A robin sits on last year’s stem
while a dragonfly buzzes by.

Here I sense the spirit 
of the pioneers who settled 
this land. Where 
is that spirit now?
I will follow their trail.

The Hornbek Homestead,
Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, Colorado.
Photo by S. W. Veatch.