My nose full of sweetgrass and sweat and dry heat stomped out of pink earth and sandy snake-havens I set down my backpack. Never do that again. Small trees offer shadows evergreen and deciduous with leaves of parched paper all twisted by wind and thirst. Wide winged black bird appears, easy and silent on towers of wind, leads my eyes to the clouds over mark-lines of time carved and curved in flat rainbows of stone unconcerned with the transient mammal perched for a blink beside the ledge over the river that beckons. Yes Maybe I’ll go down again someday.
Wren Donovan Originally published in The Dillydoun Review Issue 10, 2021