Nothing Is So Beautiful

“Nothing is so Beautiful”
(revised 11/05/08)

I’ve never seen so much nothing.
Our high beams perch rest-
lessly on the tombstones of a ghost town,
pale widowmakers poking out of the plains like toothpicks.
The fender feeds on receding white dashes.
We leave no trail.
The stars fall over Flagstaff,
then flare up on the flat horizon where
the burnt moon balances,
an orange on a string.
Nothing is so beautiful.

The dawn broke on the canyon’s rim.
Its yolk trickles into the crannies
and crevices of rock.
On the shore of a yellow sea of daisies,
the rusty smokestacks of Sedona masquerade as turrets
floating in the sky.
Someone slashed the plateau
and it bled into the hills. Wind and water
shape the places we go.
Nothing is so beautiful.