Harney Lake

When the land said stop talking, I stopped
moving, as though words were needed to keep going,
to soften the blow of lava smashed across this scape,
to deflect the unrelenting gaze of land meeting sky halfway,
to guide my deaf hand across rockbound whispers,
to mourn the lupine’s colorful daring, now squelched by the heat,
and warn the streams, giddy off the Steens,
that from this alkaline basin there is no escape.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 19th, 2008 at 1:42 pm and is filed under Oregon Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.