Perched on Rockfall in Dry Wash

One degree more northerly
And about twenty meters
Higher than Mount Tai’s summit,

Roughly a third of the way
Around the globe heading east
From the Jade Emperor’s Peak,

There is a sand and basalt
Dry wash between junipers
And piñon pines that tumbles

Through a notch in the sharp cliff
Off the edge of the mesa.
In heavy rains or snowmelt

It fills and rinses itself.
The rest of time, its stones
Are home to sunning lizards.

Mule deer clatter across it.
Skunks and coyotes leave scat.
Sometimes, hikers leave boot prints.

The nearest temple’s an hour
Back down through desert by car,
In the city of Saint George,

And although tourists visit
The surrounding parks in millions
Every year, it’s quiet here,

Except for the wind. Its rush
Suggests old Taoist notions
Of wind, the piping landscape,

Although those notions are imports
As much as any tourist.
Tsoo. The closer, Paiute word,

Onomatopoetic,
Too. The wind wanders around,
Rushing over black rockfall

In the wash. Hush, wind. You’re not
One of us, not a person,
Not a musician, no kind

Of beast, not by any name.
Waves of patterns push others,
And the others push others,

And somehow some waves end up
Caught in skulls thinking with them
How they wash around the world.