prairie smoke

{three-flowered avens, above the red deer river}

{lonely tree, blackstone-chungo forest area}

{ram falls}

i wanted so much for the land to heal you this time, wanted to hear it say shhh i know every tree on the hill rock on the mountain ache in your body & it would all seep away, purple blossoms dissolving to prairie smoke, campfire ashes sparking out out out into the twilight that never comes, just a rolling blanket of echoes & storms. but it wouldn't leave you, it stayed all night as thunder leapt the arching curves of the foothills -- frozen like a deer's body mid-run over the rocky slope of the bank. in the morning your bones ached rapid-white, endless blind rushing, slowly eroding.