Breadth

Breadth

Breadth of this land,

Would not have believed it if I hadn't seen it.

From one coast to the center

From fog enveloping everything

to red cliffs swallowing us all to

sandstone glinting

impassive

Mesa to prairie.

One land, 

not mine, not yours.

Its own,

enduring even our ambivalence,

even our small fears,

even this, to

enfold us again,

to keep

driving.

Photo 7/31/13 Old Route 64, Arizona

Today

 7/1/13

Today

What is it about today
that banished the shadows 
beyond the sea?

Humid air
eager moss
marigolds sneaking through the weeds
the smell of jasmine under rain

or maybe any of these

in itself

the assurance of

what is visible

while walking

Wyoming

July 16, 2013: Wyoming

Yellowstone, drinking,

My hood up against the nearing cold.

From Badlands to Black Hills,

we struggled over the mountains,

Pausing to let acrid smoke dissipate,

Cooling the brakes.

Wyoming whiskey tastes like

everything here.

Wide open and

barren, but lush with a sense of

possibility,

anything could happen in the scrub brush.

Born out of want

gold from thin air

as much as from suffering.

Profit from the blood

of those who came before

(were here first)

As much

as desire

for those who would come after.

July 16, 2013: Bison, Yellowstone

Crater Lake

July 24 Crater Lake

Crater lake, we planted
our feet on the canyon floor.
Dust of volcanoes thousands
of years gone by

a blink 
of God's eye.

Soft, so soft, the dust

sparkled in the air

couldn't be washed out, 

we scrubbed again and
again.
Again we bring
the dust with us.

July 23 From Watchman Peak, Crater Lake

Bakersfield

July 30 Bakersfield, California.

Bakersfield,

and it is so hot

I cannot breathe.
Panic flirts and dances,

tries to seduce me
with her

(his?

It doesn’t matter, no such boundaries

for a desire so fierce)

sweet talk

Ducking down, I hide in the desert.
Refuse to be found,
a lover who will not play.