We stand on weathered
lava rocks, washed gently
by rolling Pacific waves,
and watch a golden sun
gradually change to red
and sink right into the
sea as yellow-billed gulls
float in circles high in sky
softly landing on shore to
lend us an essence of being.
—
Richard Fleck has been writing poems since the early 1960’s with collections published starting in 1967, Palms, Peaks and Prairies, and the latest in 2020, Bamboo in the Sun: Poems of Japan. This year, 2026, the University of Wisconsin Press, published the 125th anniversary edition of John Muir’s Our National Parks with Fleck’s Introduction.
