A coyote awakened
from sleep that runs deep
into the ground
stands at the tip of a lightning flash
and fixes his stare on the source of his disturbance
for a moment before his bones click
and the rocks around him
fly up to break through
the cloud cover as he takes back a place
on his native planet.
*
A lost arroyo climbs up into the world.
It pries apart the walls
with their hollows and spaces
in which the bees still glow
inside the Earth’s dark folds
while a honeycomb hangs from the sun.
*
The mountain is a wave that passes through the night.
It rises and rolls with the pull of the moon
and follows the firefly light
that flickers in the universe when every other light
goes dark. Stars
are crushed in its wake. Comets
collide. Rock formations are drawn to their granodiorite past
as cosmic winds
sweep against them. Every waking creature
stands its ground
and they hold
by tooth and claw to
their place on humpbacked time.
David Chorlton