give or take

There are no trees, almost, no high points, just prairie, rolling and bending through time refracted in infinite distance. Another 1000 feet in altitude and you'd be lightheaded from just a peek at it. The mountains are only a day away, give or take, a white-knuckled, non-stop pedal to the metal drive. Journeys are an assault, not only a ride. There's no other way for it.

It's the sky that pulls you in, its immediacy and its size. And with the night, the prairie becomes an ocean, phosphorescence in the dew on the grain, to float suspended above the Earth, a trick of the light moving faster than safety allows. Until you realize, on such a scale, you're not moving at all. Times like those, you're tempted to just let go of the wheel.



that big rock
highest point around --
no cell signal again

Little Muddy

milkweed spills its silk -
abandoned shacks, the barn, a loo
recall a time before
















dust and grease, the sticky clay
a drilling rig's relentless motion






on the longest day; the heat of the sun















the Little Muddy is dappled
while sunset tints the twilight, too
as for the mayflies' fall
so begins the sparrow's reign