Line of Descent

Against the backdark, bright riband flickers of heat lightning.    Nearer hills begin to show, to come clear as a hard, detached and glimmering brim against light lifting there.    And here, pitched over the braided arroyo choked with debris, a tent, its wan, cakey, road-rur color.    On the front stake, two green dragonflies, riding each other, pause, Look! cries the boy, running, the father behind him running too— and the canyon opening out in front of them its magisterial consequence, cramming vertiginous air down its throat— to snatch him from the scarp.