Basin & Range

Clovis and his heirs were 
first to brace this desert 

that colors like still
water, mirages moving 
as a herd 

of game after herds 
of game moving 
onto unburnt pasture.

Pronghorns infiltrate 
the hills, brine shrimp 
churn the saline lakes,

and countless Teal 
nest in this buzzing, stinging
horizon of reeds that, nights,

steams; and in tall grass, 
heavy seed heads,
small birds, and furtive,

furred creatures 
rustling, husking, storing 
for the lean dry not all can flee;

and, along shallow rivers,
welcome trees that shed 
the soft lining of small 

birds’ nests; 
and in thickets, webs 
for bleeding wounds.

Ice, for Clovis, is
the adolescence of water:  
awkward, crossed with care.

Discovering obsidian, 
Clovis thrived in sight 
of basalt cliffs and lava tubes 

at this intersection 
of migrations, melt-
water, and savage siblings.

More than ten 
thousand years ago,
his dead exposed 

in canyons, Clovis
left middens, 
fire pits. 

We find 
arrowheads, 
        coprolites.