Snow melts


and the ensuing river begins            to wear down the mountain 


         drop by infinitesimal drop—            a process of hollowing.


                        *


Nobody recognizes his own unbecoming, so the slow green slope of us 


                    slopes slowly into blue.


                         *


They say it takes full centuries to erode a body
                                                completely. 


I’m not so sure. I was once a single misplaced word that extinguished a family forever.


                        *


Stone must be easier            to revisit                        with hindsight, 


                                      to love                           more in its absence. 


Stone must be easier to forgive.

                       

                        *


One day we’ll all have to travel a thousand miles and back 


in a car too small for its family — over stone and sand — 


just to stand awe-struck on the lip of some empty canyon 


carved from a mountain by a dried out river.