Vulture Tree

1. Morning

A solitary vulture in a tree
(or two or three)
attracts but little notice.
Perhaps a fox observes it
or a crow.
The stars shine down
curved tunnels.

Not in haste,
the dimmest stars recall
when time and place
first shattered into being.
Fires traced
the meteoric sparrows
as they fell.

The world was not idea then
and snow
that fell in those days
was not the snow
we know.
Ash does the final dusting
even now.

And so the day begins.
The cortex spins.
A hundred vultures foliate a tree.
Strong winds divide the darkness
and the rain
affirms again the firmament
of sky.

2. Departure

The day begins to westward.

Hard men ride
undaunted by companions.
Fear and pride have seared them like a sword:
go west, young man.

The landscape is entrancing.

Whirlwinds dance their own erratic ways.
The clock that ticks
inside our heads runs fast, runs fast,
runs slow.

The ticking is contagious.

Grains of sand digested by the wind
are spit again
to scour and mold the slickrock.
Like the snow on heat distorted peaks,
wind does not cease.

The white sky is a furnace inside out.

3. Delay

Men live by God's commandments,
so men wait
until the storm abates
and floods recede
to loose the caged up anger;

watch birds rise to catch the turning thermals,
mount and ride
until the target, ripe as rancid meat,
attracts the one and many;

now see birds squeeze
and elbow for a place to rip and choke
on flesh as red as ribbons,
tear and stoke
until the breast in gorged,
then with a croak, fly heavy to a tree.

Men light a smoke
and set the grass to burning
for a joke.

4. The Trail

The heads are red and swollen,
bodies swart
from eating mangled corpses.

What they fart another hand has measured
and laid low.

The wind across the river stirs the reeds.

The eyes, like flecks of pus in blood-stained snow,
recall dark sluggish waters

and the cloud
that passed once loudly over
seas of blood.

The cattle walked dry shod and were their loud
cantankerous normal selves.
They did not sense the fear or note
the danger.

The reeds across the river stirred in wind.
Birds coasted in like bombers,
dropped their load.

The wind that drove dust devils dropped by noon.
Men used their shirts to wipe
wet sweat from skin.

The wind that dried the river sped the road.

5. Wilderness

To pray for mercy is to ask for prayer
and birds are quick to answer,
quick to pluck
first eyeballs then the soft parts.

Birds survive.

The shy and tiny desert dove survives
and love survives
or maybe just hangs on.

Men suck thick plants for moisture.
Tongues are dust,
their bleeding lips a crust;
the licked lips peel.

Snakes lie back black in shadows.

Men perceive the wisdom of snakes' coolness
and have stopped.
It's night before they travel.

They have lost, and are,
so cry for water.

There, far off, from rocks
a white stream tumbles.
It recedes
a step for each step taken.

They are not saved.

If soon death comes,
it won't be soon enough.

6. Promised Land

The day men crossed the mountains,
they could feel a change in air.
They babbled
and were blessed.

A child was born as promised
and men came
with wives to what they thought of now
as home.

The crops they planted prospered
and the herds
brought wealth beyond compare.

They didn't care that strangers lived among them.
How strangers fared
concerned them as them as their own.
And so they were.

The strangers also claimed them.
They were named and came to use that name,
and so believed.

7. The Curse

Now they believe no longer.

Crops have failed.
The children that they loved have moved,
are jailed.

The chickens give no eggs, the goats no cheese.
The land is dry and barren.

Topsoil blows and drifts about like snow.

They have been cursed
and curse black vultures' eyes for what they see.

8. What Now Is So

I have come, an immigrant once more,
to this bare land,
for welcome a complaint.

Broad toads sit;
birds pick their backs for lunch.

Thin horses stand as in a painted picture,
tail to head.

Trees once were cut and branded
and the span
of trunks was sawed to lumber,
houses built.

The trucks could tremble windows
with their loads.
And, thus, the prize was taken.

Now on this land, death blows along the pavement,
pushing leaves,
as if land were an ocean,
leaves the foam.

No one can western further.

I walk along the ocean like a lone
and arbitrary gull
with crippled wings.