i walked up the gravel to quail run
toward where quail run becomes rio mesa

the glory of the verde valley spread before me
showing autumn’s startling trees on the rock backdrop of orangey reds

and then the land found my mind and offered a trade
i would be the land and the land would be me long as we could take it

thinking it was a mind game i said sure
and suddenly i was the valley

and since i was all the eyes of the valley i could be everywhere
looking above through a cooper’s hawk or on the jackrabbit ground

and being the ground as well and the rocks i the valley had such flex and heft
i the valley absorbed sunshine drew in cee-oh-two exhaled oxygen
slid fractionally on my tectonics blew my wind over my red rocks and swirled magic dust
clipclopped my delicate fawn’s hooves across beaverhead flats and
ran my fawn over
with a drunken trucker’s truck

and this made me aware of the ugly unaware i contained
the shove-aside dark human trolls planning and executing atrocities on my soil
the petrochemical seepage the pushpushpush dig and gouge and dump

and it was too much at once and with a jolt i was back in my body
and the land was back in itself

and i found that the land had left me a message not quite translatable
but including you must remember and find another way