Step Off the Road
a poem for Yellowstone
by
Andrew Talbert

I remember the first steps off the road
into the tall, leafy, emerald grass.
This place is beautiful,
I’m told,
this place is wondrous,
they said,
I will never forget the vistas. 

But what is so captivating about giant
hot tubs of rotten-egg tainted sulfur
that bubble in the blowing breeze?
It’s that inner beauty,
they said,
there’s a world inside that turquoise liquid
that shines like a lapis-lazuli in the sun,
I’m told,
something special sits in those pools.

 Could it be the geysers?
Those scalding blowholes from the enormous
whale sizes us right in this world
that somehow keeps everything running.
They are unique skyscrapers
that not even the most imaginative engineers
can create.  It is the only time a sneeze
can be beautiful;
it is the only time the pearly white of steam
seems alluring.

The roar of the flamethrower-like chimney
of water melds into a howl of the haunting
and waking wolves running through the maze
of trees.
And the elk, who nonchalantly graze
that green grass from rise till set.
A certain tranquility—serenity
floats in the air like a feather,
gently into the clearest saphire sky.

 I remember taking those first steps off the road
into a different world.