Halfway up the valley,

then halfway up the shoulder of the gully,

I am the intruder, sitting quiet,

so as not to be noticed at all.

I'm amazed at how long it takes

to watch everything not move.

Downslope, a mile or two . . . or three,

are fields irrigation-green, flat,

mile-squared, full of vine or berry,

and new silos mirror-specks in the sun.

Up here, nothing but bones to clock the years.

It is the definition of eternity:

silent land folded into dry narrows,

shards of quartz in petrified basalt,

pink plumes maneuvering through clear stone.

The clouds hardly ever wait here;

they even take their shadows with them.

But last week's hard, hot, three-day rain

camped overhead in this place

where drops seldom reach the ground,

and streams flowed brown, and thick as sweat,

to lower levels . . . somewhere else . . .

down, at least.

Some waters skinned the sand off hills,

bringing veins up for air.

Some waters sucked up the dust of bones

and slid through the coarse-grained cracks

as through an hourglass, but counterclockwise,

and were never seen again.

It satisfied the dry, high desert

for another thousand years.

​

Rockfinder, December, 2009 (49:10)