Grand Canyon

A plaque said the Colorado
was always the same size,
everything just kept collapsing
around it. Running
for so long, it cuts
deeper and deeper.
Freeze, thaw, freeze.

Stand over there,
you point,
camera in hand.

Water exerts nine tons of pressure
per square inch when it expands into ice,
another plaque reads.

You walk a few feet behind me.
We don't say much.

Rocks crack if they let anything in,
splinter into sediment over time and
are swept away.

Camera clicks. A Korean family
beckons us closer with Please,
and extends their camera to us,
Please.

I rarely see the canyon covered with snow
in pictures. I thought it'd be warm, here,
with you beside me.

The plateau uplifts,
the river scrapes deeper.

Does it make you feel anything?

I let the question hang in the cold air
like a blackbird with wings extended
over the gorge, the great wound.