We woke, ice and crisp snow, falling
tiny flakes in wind gusts on edge
of storm
creeping across the canyons, high
mountain prairie of sleet
white ridge of unmelting moisture
trail between stretched wire, frozen pastures,
a brilliance on brilliance
absorbs the clinging earth
No less fierce than
heat, this day mid-July, dry and
that clean clear stretch of road that runs
straight with the sun, endlessly
a cord set with the equator, equi-lateral,
a balance
without greenness—
escaping from . . . the Crossroads
of town and congestion, cool wind at night
(a tornado bank lay to the North, and,
studying the triangle,
we turned angling into clouds that
lay no less stark
driving in darkness
for the hills) and how rare
the vibrant sun appeared with morning
This was the Conquerors’ route—
a range for buffalo, trail of terror,
remnants of tribe people
driven from valley settlements, the hunted;
the hills are named
from old meanings, the watch in blood
(and we are going back,
the years behind us,
for a last stand . . . in a measure of trees,
looking for clear water)
All night the wind blew, and we could
see no light. we lay on a porch, old house,
slept there;
(and it was good to see in the hard
even places
the still ground cooling) we lay
as roots
and the wind blew over us
our foot prints in the bright dust
disappeared,
lifted in gushes of air, white
like moonlight
Going cold again, here
in this East place
where trees have fallen in rampage since
we left it,
the grass grown stark, folded in
a top of green, and the willow dead—what
holds man to a place? The rains come
and Indian summer
and the road to Nowhere . . . stretches in
wonder (the old ones
sleep still as ghosts under their covers) we
prepare also
for our days of stillness, the evolution
of frost