"jerome, arizona"
20 may 2006mather campground, grand canyon national park
the crested caracara throws her head back to an alarming degree, rasps and zings with outstretched clipped excitement, enlarges in captivity to allow us access. principally unreadable or purposefully existing otherwise, the elements stack tectonically regardless of explanation. in fact there is no reason to do anything, exactly. hence delight. hence futurelessness. hence lack of perspective or perspective. the great horned owl lifts its tufted neck very quietly, becomes a cat when the condor's curiosity expands to a nine-foot span, drops feathers to lure a fine. extinction and use prevail: a constructed future, convenience content to conform, like sardines but less shimmery and no water. all there is to say is the sky which needs no exposition; it is full, of sky or being said, and we are parameterless, barely here in deed and word.
"kingman, arizona"
15 may 2006a pressed obligatory morning in court no windows
the passionflower is a bird dying quickly tendrils clutched a bird crumpled on a fence blossoming into being about to be going, dying, in an instant, inside the instant pushing petals against the confines of instance a bird divided into brightly colored sections faded to dull against the dull grey mist of a sunlight about to fly away. appreciated, the passionflower is not capable, dying, of conversation as a bird's feathers upended by tendrils of wind communicate colorlessly in the hollows between bones. dying quickly, the passionflower proffers itself as a bird abandoning this branch or taking to the sky. we can exist in relation and we can garden, we can lure birds to our windows by artificial means, we cannot be like passionflowers except insofar as passionflowers grow despite themselves, open despite themselves and disappear, having been erased.