A few hang on, leather leaves on a single limb
reaching for rain, grasping sky for life
in this battlefield of arms and legs in piles
around upright trunks with loosened bark—
gray shields to relinquish at their feet.
A four-year war without water on uneven
slopes, ridges strewn with old timers down,
disheveled skeletons beginning to disintegrate,
assimilate deep into the space they leave
to time—a blank sheet, native stories gone.
What we understand of place is ‘nothing
stays the same’, no permanent circumstance
to protect and feed us except hard ground
cloaked by layers of law within the diaphanous
clouds of cyberspace it will endure forever more.
drycrikjournal 
I love the lines: native stories gone, no permanent circumstance to protect and feed. Exceptional verse evoking place. I hope you use this one in your workshop. It is special.
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