last of September

last night we drove down to Salina to meet some people for dinner. on the way we saw a familiar face hitchhiking on highway 89 in front of the central Utah correctional facility. he was going north and we were going south so we wished him luck and he laughed like a joyful maniac as we drove away.

driving down the whole sky was brilliant and pretty crisp with the last of September. aspens and gamble oak were just starting to turn and, above all that, Molly’s Nipple was dusted pallid with last weekend’s first snow.

after dinner we were driving home around sunset and Ash needed to nurse. so I pulled us off on a farm road just before Centerfield. it was around sunset and we parked next to some big stacks of one-ton hay bales. while Kelly nursed Ash, I wandered around through the 2-3 story alleyways and looked out east to where the moon had come up. now with the last sun reflecting off it, Molly’s Nipple was shining pink.

then, back in the car, we played with Ash until it was time to put her back in her carseat and head home. that’s when somebody farted and I looked around to see just what. Kelly was laughing hysterically, and then Ash was, and then I was. Ash’s laughter is getting to where it can be pretty maniacal too now.

real sorry I’ve got no pictures of any of this. nor will there be any documentation of Hayley Mills strolling through the whole thing with a parasol. also, I can say that grading 50 mediocre essays until 4 am hardly sucks at all when you’ve got flames in the fireplace for the first time this season.

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what could have thrown this lakebed two miles into the air?
to where the weather and clouds roll on their bellies,
scuffing their cheeks and hair over the tousled grasses.
what else but the years. what else but the centuries.

coarse alpine prairie, sheep-eaten. dark dusty soils, mole-guttered.

when the glaciers and snowfields recede there are kneecaps,
kneecaps everywhere, all kinds, strewn about, piled into drifts.
like from an antediluvian battle, like from the hosts of Atlantis,
from whales, from angels who flew too low or too high and later washed ashore.

all kneecaps. each one marbled and laced with its own tiny bones and shells.

for so long the whales held onto their kneecaps;
kept them around for millions of years, just in case, so patient.
when the waters come again, we’ll stand on the shore
and skip them back in like the stones they are.