As we plied the waters of the Rio
Palo Verde in northern Costa Rica,
we were told to look into the shoreline
forest to see the white-faced monkeys
high in the senna trees barely visible
through the dense clusters of leaves,
and at last we saw one come hopping
down to the brown river’s edge and
dip his long and dangling tail into the
cool water and then scramble back up
to run his tail across his mouth for a
nice refreshingly cool drink of aqua!
Richard F. Fleck
Richard’s poems have appeared in a variety of journals including Appalachia, ChristianScience Monitor, Northern New England Review and his most recent collection is Bamboo in the Sun: poems of Japan, 2020.