It begins, as usual, with the narrative of water:
a sudden
spring on a dark slope,
the ensuing drape of green. At the base, a kidney
lake
wrinkles in its skin. If this is a metaphor for faith, then
it must be
impacted by the
next scene, where a great canyon weighs against cliffs cloaked in
fire,
perhaps a thick rain. I could describe the dense afternoon with
the bicycle,
the desert, the hail,
the available tree, the decision: soak or wait.
In
this case, no one did. Would you believe me if I said, as I
watched pellets
of hail melting in-
to my shirt, that it changed me? And when, just past the ridge,
I
saw the burn crouching through the valley, when I saw the bore marks
driving into
the ridges, that was when
I felt the pockmarked future, the balance shifting from
rock
to air. Remember, the water and its course have long ended.
The hills cling
in silence, while on
their ribs, the assiduous trees sculpt themselves from their own
embers.