A canyon called Box

We come to a canyoned place

with the odd name of Box,

once a cave, perhaps, until geology

crushed its roof and opened its water

to course for eternity. Broken souls

stumbling in wilderness, walking

into a terrible layered beauty

of sharp colors, jagged piercing

ridges and sides, center points

tearing at our self-sown shrouds.

We walk: alcoholic, addict, convict,

poet, inhaling dust of generations,

the stream beside us the eyes of God

watering the sorrow of the earth.

Photograph by L.L. Barkat.