When I cleared the trees and arrived at the river, I had a moment of disappointment. The light was nearly gone from the place and the waters were blue and cold without highlights of the sun. But the rushing water sounded magnificent, still high after recent heavy rains, though receded from the flood levels of the fast snow melt when the warm rains began. Hungry for warm colors, a flag of old yellow grass caught my eye where it was caught hanging in bushes midstream. The only other warm patch was some wintry yellow grass still clinging in soil along the shoreline, across from the stranded patch hanging.

I loved the photo captured of the waving flotsam. At the time the scene felt poetic as well, so took up a pen a couple days later to express my inspiration:

Flagging Flotsam

Caught suspended
in steel grey winter
Waters recede below