THE SPACE CLOSEST TO OUR BODIES
Imagine some tan grass and
sage,
monoliths and blow
outs,
flatness the feet cannot
believe,
distance the eye laughs
at
as it fumbles blindly
with
the ends of all time.
Imagine everything here moves
(even the cactus
will come close
to a sleeping
man
and the beetle will
tunnel
under the arch of his
foot)
and a full half-moon
is
enough light for gray things.
Here our secret voice is too
loud.
When we think, the desert hushes
…
so quiet jack rabbits can
hear
owls listening with one ear
…
so quiet when a vulture
beckons
with the bones of our
hand
our shadow makes a dragging
sound
like dry skin over
rock.
Inside our selves,
there is nothing
anyone can say to
us.
We learn to hear a voice
with no sound, with no tongue
with no mouth, as
if the air
itself was a way of
speaking.
We have become easily
startled
because we are
living
in the space closest to our bodies.
William Studebaker and
Russell Hepworth are longtime residents and students of the dry,
cool regions of Utah, Idaho, Oregon and Nevada. In Travelers in an
Antique Land, Studebaker’s spare poetry and Hepworth’s
black-and-white photographs reveal places that most people see only
from their car windows. Their emotional responses to the land
transcend politics; their craftsmanship leaves readers with an
understanding of the high desert, from Bliss, Idaho, to Death, Nev.
Travelers in an Antique Land is for those who wish to hold this
part of the world in their hands and minds.
University of Idaho Press, Moscow, ID 83844-1107 (1-800/UIPress).
81 pages, hardback with black-and-white photographs.
$49.95
” John
Sollers
DRINKING FROM A
CATTLE TROUGH
You do this
because
it is the only water
because your tongue
has thickened from
breathing
because the desert taunted
you
and kicked heat down your
throat
until you choked.
With both hands
you part the
green scum.
You are no
Moses
but the clear water
below
is a miracle for which
you would risk everything.
Between drinks you watch
mosquito
larvae
flip and jerk up and
down.
Your last drink is
quick
*ot as deep as the first.
THE
SKIES OVER NEVADA
Whoever
said you can’t
learn by studying
nothing
wasn’t a philosopher
or a Nevadan.
In Nevada, nothing
is
everything. We make do
with what we have “
even due
north.
Most directions we
travel
without. We’ve
forgotten
how the constellations
rotate
(things you probably think
about
every day). Try as we
do
tailing Hydra’s too tough.
There’s always dust
moving
somewhere
and we have to check it
out.
We know where we
are
and there is plenty of
room
to be here, too.
Consider the Humboldt Sink
bigger than the
Copper Pit
(the world’s largest Glory
Hole)
or Esmeralda County
where a citizen can wander
bewildered all her
life
looking for the Lost
Dutchman.
When we lay our
dreams
end to end, they don’t
reach
the horizon, and we’ve
learned
to be content with just
that
much less of
everything.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Nothing is everything.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
