Egged on by a memory
I went to the head of the valley
Where checkerboard clouds
Always hang shadow

There in the lichened fields
Where the stunted trees mumble
I turned inward
Like a wind-spike
A dust-devil deflected along the karst

I turned
Circling in on myself
In half-falls
Like a crow gone mad
On aged elderberries

I turned in
Surrendering to the clockwork
Of ice and thaw and ice
Abrading me to gravel
Mulch for the lichens

To echo along the cliff faces
And murmur in the drops
The Bay-leaf smell of wild blueberries

Pocket thunder
Of small clouds
Drops as fat as scarabs
Smacking the hot rocks

That summer smell
Inscribed with chisels
Of dust and frost
Into the lichen manuscript
That tells from rock to rock after rock

It is said that the lichens dream
In different time
That their colors belie their youth
It is said that for them
A year is a moment
A day passes without comment
And a second is too short to lose to fate

Rain and ridgefire
The carrot and the stick
The lichens eat the years
They sugar the rocks
And limn the soils

They dream in drowsy circles
Turning inward like verdigris mandalas
And kick the wheel
That throws the pot
That births the Earth
Again