Out on the edge

Out on the edge of the prairie

  where the brown bunchgrasses

     overlook green alfalfa fields

and the view is filled over 200 degrees

  with the span of the Wallowas

a low hill has a small ring of rocks.

What a location to sit and ponder

   of time and traditions and

     those-who-have-gone-before

yet... the crustose lichens lie thick

  on the up-turned faces of these stones

waiting still for one to come again.

A perfect perch on the edge

  of the wolf highway, where stars

     fill the sky and mind

to wait for a vision, to craft a tale,

   to consider what to pass on

to "the-people" who are yet to come.

What use did this site serve,

  what contemplation found field here,

     what stories lie buried, fed to the wind

as if... previous use might add value

  to what yet lies exposed and open

to the questing mind... and heart.

Ralph Anderson, Entry #25

carte postale

And if the prairie dreams

is it of mice in the
                     rye grass?
or is that the hawk's
dream of the prairie?

 

Susan Whitney

Susan Whitney, Entry # 24

1 of 1,000,000 (The Day Without Nouns)

Just for (the span of the sun and moon)
Name ( ) no thing
Along comes --blank-- the dark time

Make it (more than okay), let it
Be yours if there was a Name for that
Yet more, let it be beyond the gerund

Speak no (noun-meaning-word), just
pass along the (angled land) as if
There never was youth or (caution).

No need to Name the (feathered ones)
Sort the calls and cries (slot them)
in memory and (forget)

responding to William Stafford's Notice What This Poem is Not Doing. The
original title of the response via fortuitous typo, "The Day Without Nous." 

sonnet for cactus mountain fire

burning and burnouts - and my little house
under the flight path as usual - and there's
that sky-rattling sound - you know the one -
bucket helicopters in the cool morning air,
the way it is before it gets thick and choppy.
on the highway and back roads - jet fuel and
catering trucks, Grayback crews, and green rigs.

and this report of local conditions to know:
hot, dry and crunchy in the canyons, with
flatbeds of off-brand gatorade rattling down
the gravel roads to fuel our sweaty fire crews.
no rain is predicted, but they say there will be
cooler nights and portable showers for all
back at fire camp - over at the rodeo grounds.

you may expect haze rolling over the mountains -
 for once again, it is summer before winter falls.


http://www.inciweb.org/incident/photographs/2661/
Link goes to fire photos on the Incident Web.

observer (thanks to Jimmye Turner)