Tim Raphael

Rewilding

The first beaver dam beckoned us all—
neighbors congregating on the road
to admire the willow shoots
woven with cottonwood limbs
stripped of bark, laid in an expert arc
across our little river,
splitting it into upper and lower terraces—
a glassy pond above
and trickling song below.

Someone rolled log stumps
into a semi-circle with a fine view
of the stone and mud abutments,
of sluice gates and spillways
that would bring an engineer to tears.

Overnight and upriver,
a second dam appeared—
the cee of the river’s lefthand bend
flattened, the deepening pool
reflecting mesa tops and thunderheads
that shilly-shally on the surface.

Mayflies fall, trout rise,
and at sunset a lone beaver
plows a rippled vee—
off to a nightshift of tree-felling.
A fourth dam, a fifth.
In flooded side channels
and spreading wetlands,
the beavers serve notice
they intend to reclaim
the whole valley for themselves.

It's something we share,
this tendency to go overboard—
to take something simple, like Sunday,
and surround it with stained glass.

The beavers get no complaints
from dippers and belted kingfishers,
or the autumn bear who leaves
great piles of apple-filled scat
along the banks.

***

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Tim Raphael lives in Northern New Mexico between the Rio Grande Gorge and Sangre de Cristo Mountains with his wife, Kate. They try to lure their three grown children home for hikes and farm chores as often as possible. Tim's chapbook, More Earth Than Flame, was a finalist in the 2025 Slapering Hol Press Chapbook Contest, and his poem, Prayer of a Nonbeliever, won Terrain.org's 2024 poetry contest, judged by Ross Gay. Tim is a graduate of Carleton College.