Petroglyph

by Chuck Guilford

It was after a storm, the clouds just lifting,
when I noticed the soft half-light
that held the hills, not a trace of wind,
but the afternoon sky rose like vanishing smoke.
Then I noticed a line of wet rock
rooted into the earth, at the edge of a shadow. Off
west, clouds still hung onto the mountain,
clung fast, and I couldn't—burn
was what I said then—that vision
into language, with words that would
flame yet smoulder—green juniper fire.
And still I think, if this last wisp of smoke
drifts off, I might follow—or just stay
here in the desert, a place I knew before
I knew my life—and later, at last
lodged in bedrock meant wonder
                                        and understood.
 

–

from What Counts