North Fork Campsite, Utah, 17 January 2017

Between spells of some kind of actual winter, the warmth

Of a desert January lowered the streams, made them
Clear their throats of mud and debris, made them chuckle again
As if all were cheerful, and why not? Every interval
Of pleasure, brief or durable, is that, an interval.
In listening to water laughter, letting waves of sun
Play on my life-strewn face, I had a kind of happiness
That was not the object of that all-American quest
But like a kind of relief, a rest. I hoped I would be
As capable of savoring cold change when the time came.