Culvert

An artist said his secret

Inspiration was to look

For his creativity

In the gutter next to him.

Can art transform the gutter?

Should art want to? A gutter

Gouged by flash floods concentrates

Random deposited rocks

Where it cuts through this mesa,

A snake tracing gravity

Against stony resistance.

Where a paved road bisects it,

It’s been transformed to tunnel,

Culvert engineered to eat

Flash floods and their rocks alike.

Where lies creativity,

In the culvert or the stones

Outlining dry wash gutter?

Don’t answer that. It’s a trick

Question, not rhetorical.

Think awhile by the gutter.