Now Look Down

The constellation Orion
Over the crescent moon rising,
Fire on the side of Pine Mountain,
Otherwise, the sky was iron.

A line, amphisbaena, writhed
On the mountain's misericord.
The red and white Zion sandstone
Browned. Hiding behind it, bronze dawn

Burned its own line, cliff after cliff,
Horizon upon horizon.
The long day traveling upright
In prayer for a merciful night

Rose with the plane and flamed over
The Vermillion Cliffs, the wired, tired,
Paved and irrigated desert,
San Juans' scallops, expired glaciers.

Twenty thousand years since the world
Was cold enough, kept to itself.
The bright metal bird flew halfway
Back up to the dark, an arrow.