in august, when the blackfoot flows to the animas

Horseback across the Blackfoot, I pull
feet above stirrups and ride, boots dry,
across cobbles and up the incline. Remember
the riverbank near our houses—
a point bar where we made castles and rode your horses?
Animas perdidas, lost souls meander sifting fine
sediment,           so much quieter than rocks:
It was only our voices that carried.

I’ve been looking for an old Chinese poem
with a bamboo stick horse and swirling river: a song
to a river merchant from his wife.
I cannot find the middle part
about the marriage and the falling
in love. In           my sought translation I have only childhood
and, then, waiting for the lover.

Two versions fly autumn butterflies
“yellow with August” or floating the tension
of “lunar August,”           two by two,
making me think of moths, a yellow moon, a contra dance;
making the wife’s heart hurt with beauty.
She ages.

In this August, my horse picks down
one steep bank, lunges toward its opposite.
From our crescent beach we watched the cut bank crumble.
When I remember, when I do that piece work,
topography and erosion weigh the anchor
and the rest flickers.           Our rivers
are shallow, quick, do not harbor moss.

I spook a grouse on the cliffs.
Later, I come down to hayfields,
a red-tailed hawk and a crow           circling each other.
I lope to meet the river; I wonder how we will appear.