DRY CRIK Journal

Skirts sewn with low roads, parallel trails with grass
up the middle, first glance is never quite the same –
her bare steep slope south, one long ridge, high post

to peak, patch of laurels on her decomposing flesh –
north falls into buckeye, manzanita, live and poison oak
too thick to stand afoot, for man to approach.

Sprinkled with cattle grazing the grip of boney fingers
digging west into the creek or east into Mankins
where generations stayed before the homesteaders

quit their rock chimneys – high-pressure fold,
magma thrust upwards, pockets of crystal and quartz
set in granite, cracked seams leaking springs, she wears

little grass with her winter cap of snow. She does not
blink at my impatience and frustration with the world –
with the wet or dry years – she doesn’t really care.