Falls

Chris Ellery

April 17, 2022

Hiking below the falls in spring,

I come across the rotten body

of a buck with horns

just beginning to show.

Up where the stream

breaks over stone in a drop

to jagged rocks, it slipped

one icy day and fell.

“Poor young buck,” I say. “Alas,

how your stench spoils my walk

and fouls the sweet water

here above Iron Springs!”

The buck replies: “Did you say

sweet? Did you say fouls? Did you say

stench? So like a man to confuse

the wilderness with judgment.”

A long-time resident of San Angelo, Chris Ellery is the 2019 recipient of the Texas Poetry Award from the Texas Association of Creative Writing Teachers. Contact him at ellerychris10@gmail.com.