Featured Series: Works by Members|of the Two-Year College Caucus at AWP|Poetry: All forms & styles|2YC Member Ken Letko|"Bright Angel"

Ken Letko

Bright Angel

gloaming is the time 
of day when ferns
become deer

the night hawk
croaks at the bottom
of a dive into mosquitoes

in my memory suddenly
from the South Rim
I’m hiking the Bright Angel

make it to Indian Gardens
giant cottonwoods shade
the creek flowing strong

when I look up
the Milky Way
is a prayer

blanketing the Tonto
Plateau above
in the wavering heat

I camp on the flat
without a tent 
the deer are so close

I can hear them chew 
their evening browse
because I wander

in and out of sleep
daylight comes on
in my own meadow

and the deer 
become ferns
next to red alders

About the writer:
Ken Letko’s first full-length book of poetry Bright Darkness was published in 20217 by Flowstone Press.  His poems have also been included in numerous magazines and anthologies and both the North American Review and Poetry South have nominated his poems for the Pushcart Prize.

Image: Krajina by Oton Iveković (1869-1939). Oil on canvas. No size specified. 1901. Public domain.