The ridge road takes the ridgespine every way
It turns. It threads the granite venebrae
And old. wind-dwarfed ponderosas that twist

Tonight in the Southwest
Sadness is disappearing

Tonight in splash-marks

 

When my sister was small, father carried her everywhere in a woven pack-basket. Once he killed a deer with her strapped to his back. She moved and spoiled his first shot, and the deer ran off with one shattered hind leg trailing like smoke.