Photo & Poem Challenge: Visiting Friends

We shared stories as we drove up the canyon road
that angled between rocks, colored grape and copper
and sienna; geometric rocks stacked like massive
bricks as perpendicular to the earth as castle
walls. Tucked between gnarled trees were ageless

log cabins without porches or windows, creosote
black and hunkered low on southern exposures,
open to long meadows edged with pine and aspen
that quake and sway in the late morning sun. We
first saw the herd under the shade of a lone fir

on an open grassy stretch. They’d been watching
us long before, a platoon of long-ear sentinels
judging our intent. One tall and elegant with an
aristocratic nose. A stoic gray who asked for less
than he wanted. A jenny as wide as she was tall

and just the color of milk in tea. Two rough and
tumble brothers with a schoolboy sense of humor.
Our friend’s laughter came up on the breeze and we
All stood shoulder to belly and head to heart, passing
hours grazing, scratching donkey ears, and admiring

wise mule eyes. At the water tank, Fiona sipped with
deliberate caution but then left the tip of her pink
tongue dangling just past her whisker lips. She let
me touch and it felt cool and delicate. And intimate
beyond reason. Driving back, the road was unfamiliar.

Aspen leaves turned to gold before our eyes as the sky
faded to a pale shade of winter turquoise. We nibbled
on cookies made of seeds and apples and grains, and
the particles wedged between our teeth became the
savory flavor of reluctance and September grass.