Art/Photography Credit: Peter Franc
Shatterer of Worlds
Trinity Crater / the glowing center / I want to dig at / if only there weren’t / so many damn rocks / in the way. If only / the surface weren’t / already broken glass.
by Luke Rodehorst | 10 Jul. 2009
He greets me
at the entrance
perched atop
a turned-over
apple crate,
pinching up fingerfuls
of red sand.
His hands all knuckles,
one eye squeezed
shut. No copper
mines here anymore,
no yucca flowers,
Lord’s candles.
He spreads
the dirt into
small squares
of cloth, tying
each off
with a length
of twine. He burns
pinyon boughs
in an abalone shell.
The shovel
at my side,
lighter than I
remembered.
Trinity Crater
the glowing center
I want to dig at
if only there weren’t
so many damn rocks
in the way. If only
the surface weren’t
already broken glass.
The man peers
up at me
through his good eye:
You here
for the ghost dance,
ain’t ya?
at the entrance
perched atop
a turned-over
apple crate,
pinching up fingerfuls
of red sand.
His hands all knuckles,
one eye squeezed
shut. No copper
mines here anymore,
no yucca flowers,
Lord’s candles.
He spreads
the dirt into
small squares
of cloth, tying
each off
with a length
of twine. He burns
pinyon boughs
in an abalone shell.
The shovel
at my side,
lighter than I
remembered.
Trinity Crater
the glowing center
I want to dig at
if only there weren’t
so many damn rocks
in the way. If only
the surface weren’t
already broken glass.
The man peers
up at me
through his good eye:
You here
for the ghost dance,
ain’t ya?
