The sun is setting under gray thunderheads
after ninety days of rain and we are talking
with the camera, its long thick eye closed,
but at the ready as the landscape changes
clothes in the crisp, clean air, every shadow
sharp. ‘Art,’ he suggests, ‘may be the only
way to save humanity.’ I submit to my son
that creativity comes from constantly rubbing
against rural realities begging a hands-on plan—
of pumps and plumbing, leaky troughs
and fences, all the languages of livestock
and the wild we try to translate, an art
from and on this solid ground as it changes
with the light. I walk and click as I speak,
searching for an answer to savor later.
