Near Silent Creek

Like a single unbroken commitment to rain
this dry wash believes the earth’s pull
flows through rock that is bound to move.

Roots beyond darkness understand
that too, but not like a human
mind so much as veins remaining, empty
after everything has gone.

The shadow of bitterbrush
no longer moving slowly
over basalt, the vertical
columns themselves,
collapsing inward.

And yet this flow of stone
and sand could teach us
that every direction
we speak is an opening deeper
than any story.  Here is one now:

    A thin blue column of smoke
    rose slowly
    then vanished
    in the desert air.

Hear it: