There's poetry in there somewhere

I've just returned from a long weekend in Utah that began with an unusual clear-day, early morning flight from Chicago to Salt Lake City. Being a window-seat type - to me, there's no joy in flying unless I can watch the world go by from on high - I took a few notes as we fled Chicago, crossed the Mighty Mississip and made our way westward. This is what I had when I opened my notebook again this morning:

peaks valleys canyons
escarpments ridges
aretes

snow water desert green
rivers lakes pools and
ponds

irrigation, parched
red, green, beige, blue, brown, tan, sand yellow

rises and dips

erosion, large and small scale
man made and not man made

rumpled and smooth
broken and whole

river beds and lake beds

straight and straightened
meandering and dammed

All of this before we even got near the Rocky Mountains. This is a photo of the Colorado highlands taken along the same flightpath last February.