Reaching the Ground (poem)

 

Desiccated weeds and tall dry grasses exist
shaking agitated in the wind
inconstant element with the sun
mild this time of year

  While cars and trucks roll over edges of interstate grooves
rivaling the sound of engines
racing through nowhere to be somewhere
green things grow in the distance

  Things more alive than the pale green sagebrush
set by the trillions in these places
that know barbed wire and goats
yet was made to serve coyotes and rabbits

  Pale yellows, browns and green suggest possibilities
of something near that never does appear
for green blades of grass and special storefronts
concrete curbs and sports bars are more real

  What of the stars that are so clear and alone
set far across empty space
when humans know gravity’s conforming love
the cold empty void can’t be home

  Stones are strewn amid driest dirt
knighted with a crust of rain long ago-
a patina that is vigilant against dust storms
that too easily rise

  A sinusoidal wave trough from eternity
lingers with temporal clinched drives
each life is a momentary beingness
of relationships too readily benched.