From the subduction of the Farallon plate, from an ancientocean draining away, away,               from a merle of red-wingedblackbirds ringing the last reedy mudhole for miles,beneath a wind leaning ever against the earth,                    unearthing nowthe skull of a buffalo, eye socket the size of a man’s fist,which is the size of his heart, which makes for an unsettlingvacancy. A geography of absence, an economy of abnegation,aesthetics of antelope blood & roaddust. Everything was rivered,but there was no river. Everything was bent                         like the grass,even the small, be-ribbed backs of children. Everyone loved& hated the obvious face of the sun, which in turn blessed& burned,       like the eight hands of any one of the gods—aeolian, fluvial, hillslope, etc. Come evening it wasn’t abouteschatology, not exactly,                more the cold kiss of hosewateron our foreheads, the soft places beneath the jaw. I’m telling youone August, years ago now,                  the cottonwoods bowed down,the ditches filled with tumbleweeds, the fields forgot themselves& were dust—we all saw it. Even the ghosts.