To Fate

(On a point called the rest area with no name.)

 

Come, bury  my fear

within this Salt Wash rock

where yellow flowers rise

from bone and ash -- remains

 

of a woman

who won daylight

from the creator

 

and shared her bright

gains with the tribe.

 

Come, sweep my breath

harried and hopeless

into stone lungs

 

that smell of rushing water

and pine. Come, let it fade,

seep and settle

 

into palisades

that shift and shatter

over time -- until

 

another sculpture

shoves its way

out of the ruin. An overhang.

A prow guarding its field

of tidal grass.

 

A solid calm.

where the shaken self

has been re-cast

 

into the wing drift

of mist or white-tailed hawk,

the presence of prayer.