CANADIAN
ROCKIES
Long ago explorers
clothed in animal skins
braved forbidding crags and ice
in canoes and snowshoes
pursuing gold, furs, jade
for thrill of adventure.
How did they react to
sharp pyramids that
pierced the sky, boulders
like colossal chess pieces
towering pines, huge red cedars?
Athabascar Falls and river,
everlasting rainbow in center
reflecting alpen glow at sunset
water gushes in, carves out
crevices and channels.
Mount Snowdome
Triple Continent Divide:
marvel of rivers flowing
from this explicit spot
north to Arctic Ocean,
east to the Atlantic,
west to the Pacific.
Did the primal travelers
watch bears fish along
Blue River’s shores
see crystal green lakes reflect
sunstriped white rocks,
trudge the Columbia Icefields
thousands of feet deep?
Imagine those adventurers
seeing tourist buses dwarfed
by crenellated mountains
sawtooth formations
stabbing the azure sky.
Cars stop, cameras focus
eighteen-rack elk munches
grass in the field,
unmindful of time.
© carolee bertisch
