The other day when I was tearing through my paper files looking for something for work, I found a folder of poems that I had forgotten about. They are all from a poetry elective I took back in college, and are dated 2003. 20 years ago (ouch, it made me feel old). Some of them are decent, some a little cringe, and some just required a few tweaks to make them work better. By no means do I think they are perfect, but it was fun to see where my mind was at back then. I’ve decided that I’ll slowly share them here (I did retype them into a Google doc so I have another copy, as I’m pretty sure the hard disks they were on are long-gone into a landfill somewhere).

The one below is both the original and the version I rewrote as I was typing it into the document. I think if anything, the years have given me more of an editing eye. Not that one is inherently better than the other, they both serve a purpose. But it is fun to see how I would say things now versus then. Although a few of them did not need any edits. I’ll share those at some point too.

Canyon Song (2003)

Stratified rock slants sharply, 

Carving into air.

Reaching to the canyon bottom, 

Brilliant splashes of red, orange, yellow

Paint the rock face. 

Crisp blue sky comes down to kiss the Earth

And dance at the canyon rim.

A winding snake-river lies at the base,

Its green-blue waters licking at the sand. 

Eroding rock. 

Moving through immovable landscape. 

Meeting rock layers at their origins. 

Carving into the Earth. 

Bathing rock. 

Canyon Song Revised (2023)

Carved from the Earth, deep fractures from a history of slow change crack across the landscape. 

Stratified projections rise sharply toward an endless, cloudless azure sky.

Brilliant slashes of rust, orange, and yellow find anchor at the edges of a winding liquid snake, rippling in shades of blue and green.

Deep chocolate eyes squint and scan the horizon, breathing deeply. A minute blemish on the edge of the world.