Somewhere in the South Pacific
a human-shaped speck casts a bottle
from the shore of a tiny island
into the interminable sea.
The bottle contains a note
which bears:
a name
an approximate location
and a desperate plea.

The bottle drifts slowly away
flashing in and out of view
on the crests of passing swells.
It glides on mysterious currents
and a quiet modicum of hope.

Simultaneously,
Above a particular point in the Northern Hemisphere,
a ball of tin foil
labeled Voyager I
is crossing the threshold
into the world outside
the solar system.

On board are a pair of golden discs
engraved with:
images and voices of human beings
the relative location of the Sun to fourteen nearby pulsars
and a plea,
      naively disguised to look like a proud declaration of identity
                             but what proud and accomplished
                                       race of beings
                         would need to search for
                                 companionship
                            among the stars?

                         The little metal ball floats away
                                        blinking bits of data back to Earth
                                                              each grainier than
                                                                 the last

                                     tugged by the gravity of distant bodies
                                                               and a quiet modicum of
                                                              ­                                  hope.

Dusk.
The black of undermaintained asphalt
in a ribbon rolling over
the volcanic hills,
the yellow of the centerline
flashing into view and passing beneath
in a rhythm,
like a heartbeat.

Jackrabbit on the shoulder
***** his head and springs
away from something in his imagination,
following the yellow dashes
in an awkward gait,
a single bold jump
followed by twenty yards of
dead sprint.

Not eight feet overhead
a pair of nighthawks bob and flutter
erratically
but following one another in
pursuit

of something I cannot see.

Silken stone
dewed damp
tipping to topple
over outcropping-

balanced buttress
feigning flightlessness
until, unexpected, uphill
avalanche advances
rushing, racing
poised to push-

rock rolls
sailing slow
slow
slow
slow-

explosion echoes
crisscross canyon.
Sheep stop,
listen long,
lingering

Scrubjay alights on dewdamp juniper
Jree?
he asks
Jreee?

There is no one around to answer.

Brook trout leaps to catch a bug on the wing
and for one moment
she is suspended between the stars
and their reflection

but this does not occur to her.

Ponderosa’s limbs and roots
streeeetch
into the soil and the air
it has been alive for one hundred
and ninety years

but it is not counting,
are you?

I saw visions of tortured souls
ripped apart by machinery
in the bowels of a concrete prison
and reassembled
like patchwork quilts
and I was awestruck with horror
at what I saw
and then I woke up.

Relief gave way,
after a few minutes,
to a deeper dread
because what I had seen was not
something I had been forced to watch,
it was something that came out of me

I had given those feverish images
of inhuman evil and suffering
life.

I spend so much time
gripped by the fear of the world outside
my home, outside
my bed, outside
my body
and now I feel like
nowhere
is safe.

It is three o’clock in the morning.
The streets are quiet.
There are no car alarms.
There are no dogs barking.

And I am too afraid to sleep.

Pale figure
softness laid bare
to the maw of the earth-
those gnawing rocks
sharpened by the rain.
They do not frighten you.

Even still I picture the cold dawn
of spring painting the snowdrifts
and you
in a silent snapshot.

Would that I could join you there
to hear your breath mix with the wind
to feel the heat of the stones where you sit.
They cannot defeat you-
they envy you,
for you are so unlike them.

You are the ghost
of these limestone hills
and you haunt me.

Clench the disembodied tooth of your
solipsism in the womb of your fist
with your eyes closed
and let it bite your flesh.

In that eyes-closed world
you can feel the roots and ridges
pressing back
like a kicking fetus
that can't understand its own
existence,
much less the existence of anything
  else.

The blood of the world you don't
believe in is trickling
from between your fingers

your pain is leaching out
onto the living room carpet
into the stratosphere. And
as you and the tooth become
one in the dark
you can feel the fist of something larger
closing around you.