Quicklime covers flower bodies of asphodel
beside the dry meander of the riverbed trail.
As the cobalt light dedicates its reflection
two collectors chiseled to open stone globes
for the quartz revealed like a temple door.
Minerals compress like an expression of mind.
Pillared down from the outcropping enthroned
the drip of a waterfall begins in constant thirst.
I left my tobacco at the base of a dead tree,
a hawk overhead is the cross of this valley.