THE SOUNDS OF NORMAL

Gasoline makes game scarce.
– William Stafford (“From the Move to California”)

A honk in the dark under clouds,
a lost goose circles the canyon’s walls
as it listens for an answer,

               as I listen to the creek
               rush instead of gurgle
               since the rain.

Turkeys gobble over the rise
I cannot see, pausing like tree frogs
to join the chorus.

Not a car on the road
with headlights dancing
between posts and barbed wire—

there are no bounds to the black,
no interruption to the sounds
approaching normal

as if we and our machines
have abandoned this canyon
to its own devices.