The Yellowstone Experience and Grand Canyon Experience, etc.
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
We see the sinkholes roiling up from stained
Ennui. We gawp at geysers spewing scald
Of superheated water unexplained
Riverside Geyser; Neal Herbert; January 2015; Catalog #19834d; Original #ndh-yell-2162
To those who want just gape-eyed ogling, bald.
At awe-filled canyons tourists crowd the rim
To squint with vacant eyeballs at gouged troughs
Of deep profundity. Rubberneckers’ dim
Perception stares at vastness only, scoffs
At noticing the posted signs that might
Explain, at least a tiny bit, the force
And eons working through the stone. A slight
Involvement of the brains is there, of course,
But slight as frost in cracking rock. We leave.
We think of lunchtime. We remain naïve.
~ Phillip Whidden