On Two Medicine River
We waded through thick, live air beneath the cottonwoods
Which murmured contentedly, their trunks all warm
With sunlight which the leaves invited down.
Gnats, midges, and a thousand nameless things
Streaked and danced through dusty underbrush.
A tolerant lazy rattlesnake
Flowed from his coil at sound of our approach
Leaving his warm place on the cattle trail.
Bill caught his fish-line and was brought up short
And we must stop and work the puzzle out—
Odd, how deft fingers of the berry bush
Can tie things up.
Finally breaking for some likely spot
Where trout might be, we force our way
Into the open, scramble down a bank
And stand beside the river on the sandstone
