Chapter Next

A painter friend was describing his process the other day. He starts out by putting down a landscape, arbitrarily, in oil. He will then wait a couple of days for it to firm up and proceed to paint over it, also arbitrarily. Finally, he scrapes around the new paint, and gouges the old paint that has had a chance to form only a hard outer skin. The scraping turns the top paint muddy while the gouging brings fresh color from below to the surface and adds a new life to the mud above.

In numerous ways I have been reminded that the retelling of my visions from America in 2009 do not need to be so exacting, so chronologically predictable. Now ends this linear trajectory.

Let the melting pot begin.

Their World as They Know It

It appears as if life in rural Utah has been this way forever.

That the cars did indeed sprout up from the ditch.

That the tree grew pale white with no intention of forming branches and the plastic kennel erupted from the rubble one stormy afternoon, a long time ago.

The rocks here were born painted, the signs born into distress.

And the boy has always been friends with the burro.

Patriot Poems

Flagpoles rise

Devotion to that which flies freely

Trampolines settle

Silence only springs know

Tourists proceed

Caravans feed their velcroed soles

Indians gaze

Silently devoted to their caravans of yesterday