We stroll around a lakeshore
laced with green live oaks,
and suddenly stop short at
the sight of an alligator
curled to stalk its prey.
We turn around with fast
beating hearts to sight a
very small armadillo whose
armored plates shine in the
sun and whose tiny white
claws comically scamper
away from us in fear.
—
Richard F. Fleck, now 88, has published a number of collections over the years, the first being Palms, Peaks and Prairies, 1967 and the most recent being Bamboo in the Sun: Poems of Japan, 2020. His many books include A Colorado River Reader, 2000, Desert Rims to Mountains High, 2013, and Henry Thoreau and John Muir among the Native Americans, 2016. He is a retired professor of American literature and Native American Studies at the University of Wyoming with visiting appointments at Osaka University, Japan and the University of Bologna, Italy.
