Between Jeffers’ jagged edge
and Snyder’s Sierra peaks,
we graze grassy folds of clay
on cold fractured granite pushed
through titled sheets of shale.
Dealt deep canyons, ridges lined
like sunlit face cards: hearts
and diamonds glint with winter
dawn. We gamble lifetimes,
season after season with the goddess—
a diaphanous myth embodied
in the least encompassing the greatest—
more humane than the currency
of unreasonable religions,
or governments—she comes and goes
as she pleases, teases us like children
and we obey. No other mother
more erotic in a storm
pushing rafts of limbs and leaves
down a creek rising—our faces
streaked with tears of rain.
drycrikjournal 