to the season a fig tree barks with verdant persistence on

a shapeless sharp stone knoll

it's hot on this dry desiccated morning

What other disasters slide to ground beneath her roots into black depths in pursuit of levity

They all know I’m 75% water, to linger may sate my curiosity and quench their thirst

This blanched ground grips her fauna,

Forcing it to ground between raised limestone rolls and tumbles

the cycads gather in the gutters and time flowers into spinifex and lime and fossil whorled by heat twist into desuetude

this wilderness without better company than fire drives the shade from the sky, nibbles at her extremities.

I would welcome fire but he demands the same space I presently occupy and I want no ally in heat to consume the shade and crack the rock with brittle ideas 

a million years pass

ants collect the change

grass stalks pant undergound

cities of termites raised in pursuit of prayer

a bruise on the sole of my foot as insistent as the car parked overhead.