The morning before it all fell apart

Dreamers create light
And let the breeze convey it

Quails flail before my car
A martrydom of sticks
A crystal shop of stones
A mountainside like a mound of buried bones
That pretends not to see
The bright, famished faces
That lay claim to the day
Its wet shoots and surreptitious sounds

The silt swirls like visions of Jesus
Stone dirt glitters
Plants pull themselves out of their graves (in the wind)
Bearded sand
Mangy branches
Pods like wedding confetti snared in spikes and leaves

Their hungers are just shadows
In the landscape of absence
Where nothing is remembered
Except how to live