december on the way through the morning dry winter river gorge

I drifted lazily around banked curves on the highway,
all the while watching the scene:

a sunrise stretching out its rosy beams

the closer I got, its warning light
soon nothing more

than a glow behind the sharp edge of the plateau,
which was packed with basalt cliffs and the like,

and the river, steaming, fogged,
eerie clouds having no more room on the water's surface
rising in winter's triumph to join their siblings
in the sky. They've a ways to go.

This is the beauty of winter in the steppe,
without the copious snow.

-Dana Winter