The air is burly
trees harvest soldiers on the line
combines, threads, manure, life--
A whole world lost amidst the flats
Saplings are the next season's
Almonds, Apples, Dates,
Waiting for food shelves and stockrooms
packed in banana boxes and given a place
They will find the plates of capitol city dwellers
They will be engorged far away from their origins
The Sierra-- oh the great plutonic mass
They are grey from age, peppered with white whiskers of snow
They are asking to be known as the interior
Pilgrims who traveled over their spines, seeking these fertile swampland
Now airstrips and dirigibles
The edges of clouds on the valley, the deserts and the mountains like folds of a book
they crackle in the sun and the skin of the earth shrinks in its gaze
Migratory birds dance in the fields, the lowly clang of bell
Bleached american flags tell us this is the land
The land of things and endless breadth
This is only California, but the majesty of it
a gem valley encased by the rocks, in silicates
A roaming place for cows, wanderers, farmers, dreams
Where the only edge of things is the mountains, saying
-Climb me, surmount me, lay me under your deeds-
