July 12 Scott's Bluff

July 12

Scott's Bluff

We've settled in on the plains, a spray of

prairie sage clinging

to the foot of the bluffs,

each cliff face being shaped

into something sacred above us,

melting like wax

under a high plains sun,

releasing from time to time

a harder stone or boulder

into our midst,

old Goliath tossing stones back at the

child.

But no face is left

unaltered by this place.

We're all being hewn

into something primitive,

something native,

casualties scattered

in the grass

like gravestones.