SENTINELS The Drumheller Hoodoos
Joan Calvert
2024 Writing Contest
POETRY 2 ND PLACE TIE
Heatwaves on the broad clay flats Undulate and quiver, While sombre hills guard jealously The languid, silken river. Armed with cactus spikes they stand, Plumed with grass and sage. Yet in their barrenness they hide The death of a former age.
When they were shores of an inland sea, Waiting upon their queen, They rejoiced in their clean-cut granite youth. And then, when the world was green They watched the jungle, steaming, lush; The sea was a shadowed swamp. Great creatures prowled the living ground, Fearsome in armoured pomp.
Mankind now braves those ancient hills, The clay flats parched in sun. They rest on rocks in the welcome shade Of canyons arid and dun. They swim in the regal river, On her placid stream they ride, Sheltering under the bowing trees Lest she turn on them in pride.
The sentinels wait stoically, Their carven colonnades Stand watch; her once imperious voice Now languishes and fades.
WINTER 2025 | 47