Tearstain on a western hillside,
the carbonized imprint
of a Jurassic willow.
II. Outside Salt Lake City
Riddled with holes,
some towering red Swiss cheese
with little patches of scrubby mold here and there
Give me a knife to scrape the sky
and I’ll carve you off a slice.
III. Distant lakes
Rorschach lakes crawl
across stone sky-fields
like shadows on the surface of the moon.
IV. Lichen at High Altitude
Undifferentiated grey mass resolves itself
into rectangles, rhomboids,
a hundred million polygonal forms
all hard-edged and grainy-faced
Green patch in a sea of slate,
oasis opening onto infinity,
waving semaphore arms
Is there anybody out there?
V. The world is quiet here
The world is quiet here
Clouds so close you can snatch
handfuls of candy floss
and devour them greedily,
a famished Ming soldier on the Long Wall
The world is quiet here,
save the buzzing of a persistent fly
What brings him to this place?—
errands from worlds below
or an accidental updraft,
vaulted into the dome of heaven.
VI. Heathaze
A black river with green banks
bisects a sea of white salt
Heathaze holds up the promise of sanctuary,
vanishes like a dream half-remembered
and then forgotten
in the space between sleeping and waking.
VII. Iris
Blue pupil amidst a green iris
Granitic carunculae
A million points of light coalesce into
one twinkle in your eye,
shining at the prospect of a bath
or something less savory.
VIII. Condemned (Sutter Buttes)
Subterranean wrecking ball
razes to the foundations
Icelandic turf house in the blazing heat
The mind can fill in the missing lines,
bay windows and high gables
Now just two bony jaws,
open just wide enough
to swallow the sun.
August 2010
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