Kings Canyon Vacation
by Robbi Nester
Long ago, so long it’s almost mythical,
I went camping among the big trees—
Sequoia and Redwood, near a river.
The trees stood dark and silent
over our small tent.
The river sang all night, never still,
weaving in and out of my dreams.
Much later, I put words to the tune.
PHOTOGRAPH: Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Park (California) by Neale Clark, Robert Harding World Imagery/Getty Images, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: This poem was inspired by Silver Birch Press’s vacation prompt. The vacation in question took place over 30 years ago, when I first came to California to attend an MFA program at UC Irvine. I liked it so much here that I never left.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Robbi Nester doesn’t take many vacations these days, but she makes up for it by writing poems that take her far away. She is the author of a chapbook, Balance (White Violet, 2012), a collection of poems, A Likely Story (Moon Tide, 2014), and a forthcoming collection, Other-Wise (Tebot Bach). She also edited an anthology of poems inspired by public media, The Liberal Media Made Me Do It (Nine Toes, 2014).
Silver Birch Press 