Author Archives: John

                                  And, nothing himself, beholds
                                  Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
                                            – Wallace Stevens (“The Snow Man”)

Always the backdrop
of deep pipe songs
awakening at dawn—

Roadrunners in rockpiles
like coyotes at night
finding one another.

Or the late November chill
of sequestered bulls
pacing the barbed wire,

their primal trumpeting
echoes up and down canyon
searching for the company

of work, sweet work.
The quiet moments
in between are cold

before and after
a good hard rain
when fog rolls in,

up canyon,
spilling over ridges
to wall the world away

in opaque gray
swallowing sound
to leave you lost,

disconnected, alone
with only the thought
of becoming nothing.