The place lacks the roofless cell of an obscure Saint, round foundations of Norman towers, ruins of an abbey, graves of revolutionary heroes, stone boundary walls, a tiny sleepy village with an inn, a pub or two; yet in summer, here the river could be cold Sister to the Barrow. Its course washes this low bowl scoured so broad it is nearly bank-less between sheltering mountains. It sounds as shallow rivers do when they slip seaward among their smooth rocks. Cattle from high pastures, elk from their coverts among stands of quaking aspen come cautiously down through black timber to ease their thirsts. White goats descend from their windy ledges to drink here. That I am aware of these things is an accident of physics-ancient molecules must play their usual parts in my brief arrangement. I am their one long collision of matter and circumstances met here and wherein now come some few joules of irresistible electricity to tell me I, too, will go soon down to the water.

Jeff Streeby grew up in Sioux City, Iowa, where he attended Morningside College. He holds a Master of Fine Arts Degree in poetry from New England College in Henniker, New Hampshire. He is a horseman, cowboy poet and performer. He currently teaches AP English in Perris, California. His work has been published in Western Horseman, The Big Roundup, Cowboy Poetry: The Reunion, Lynx, Rattle and others. His current project, Sunday Creek, is a feature on cowboypoetry.com. In 2005 and 2006, he was an invited presenter at the Gerard Manley Hopkins Summer Institute in Monasterevin, Ireland.