Deadfall

I came to see the stars shine

Like silver-headed pins in the blue-black sky

I came to see rocks

Carved from the immense and everlasting

erosion

Of time and wind and water

Colored red

By the oxidation of the iron at its core

I came to see cliffs of sandstone

Rearing high into the cloudless blue sky

I came to see a huge chasm

Created through the herculean upheaval

Of chunks of moving earth

And tens of thousands of gallons

Of pure, glacial-cold water

But what I found

Was sparse blackened grass

Edging a meadow

Colored a washed-out celery green

Splintered and broken gray-barked trees

Laying amidst a plethora

Of battered and broken branches

And smelly stagnant water

Over which a wreath

Of buzzing no-see-ums

Endlessly circles

This was to have been

My chance

To be more

Than I was, am or ever could be

But as is the fate

Of all mankind……….I failed