The black abandoned cabin,
Cow dung turned to stone,
Some half-framed houses on foundations,
Gas pumps left to corrode ...
It seemed, somehow, there was more:
A purity of light, simplicity
By design, a dance where the rock face
Took the shapely dunes in its hands
And twirled through the vast canyons,
A desolation that was shared
Completely, like an unseen hawk
That rippled through the freeing breeze.
The photos that arrived, without
Explanation, in a plain envelope
Had none of that. A few rocks,
Some washed-out scrub, the cliffsides
Where the brushfires were
A blur of grey and orange.
Yet I'd waited patiently -- all these
Years it seems -- for the proof
We once were one
For you stopped me at every one of my urges
To take a picture.
