Moon Commute

Scrub-green, dun, ochre, and grey
Beatitudes, a buzzard
Picking roadside carrion,
Dawn slicing night off the top
Of pinyon-prowed mesas,
Wan moon on old-snowed mountains,
White on blue, white on blue-white,

The river named the Virgin,
Virgin tongue of the dragon,
Probing the gorge of St. George,
Names tumbling observations
Like boulders in a rockslide,
Cracking facades crushed to myth,
Alchemical stone, please work.