The Grass

Bouteloua black grama grass red chino side- oats blue grama grass hairy buffalo- grass toboso three-awn land’s dawn 旦 sun over sand, tumble wind- mill witch- cup- saltgrass plains love- indiangrass, prairie cordgrass, pink pappusgrass, sprangle- top green knotroot bristle, bluestem, tangle- head, sacaton panicles open, golden drop- seed blooms desert winter- grass, awns twist, un- twist,such syllables flicker out of grass : Nanissáanah thirst, ghost dance native spirits, active roots, footstalks to soil as to site, stems bend, range- lands wave, seiche fields sway, clouds pass over- grazed grass staked, fenced dries, weakens, dies, fallen crowns, the grasslands what comes to pass, ranch- hand lands, live- stock livelihood wildlife gone, displaced, migrations impeded, scales im- balanced the years spread, each itself hitched to everything else in the universe nodes hollowed, drought- land years, drops on the hardpan nature is endless regeneration trichloris, muhly, switch- grass, wind misses 沙 沙shasha through the pass- es, whispering seeds will pass, will pass within leaves listening grasses,not only the revelation but the nature behind