The shale abounds
above the pounding waves
with perfect snapshots
of a lost, impossible world

Images beyond the skill of sculptors,
ridged, spined and rippled
frozen in rock, of rock -
who could have guessed
how long the armour would protect?

And yet -
trilobites
who ruled the shallows
when dinosaurs were but a glint
in Pachamama's eye,
are dead, gone, passed over
in the battle for existence.

While in the boiling surf below,
the jellyfish
who still blithely ride the tides
insolently call:
"Good luck wi thae shells, boys -
"Bet yis'll be safe wi thaim!"
and disappear
in a bubble of translucent laughter.

Compound eyes
Astonishing spectacles
Clairvoyant views from above
Wings glistening in the light of the sun

Buzzing long bodied mystical stories
Dragon's breath of spiritual eloquence
Releasing the bugs eating away at conscience
Skeletal spine of an egoless monk
whispering harmoniously the simple remedies
of cleansing thought

My snake doctor
Quick witted unmasker
your view 360 degrees
Focusing on the movement
and pesky mosquitos that feast
That leave us scratching our heads

I look on so enviously
at Lady Dragonfly
as she hovers angelically
In an eternal sky

It saddens me that the great one's lives are
always cut too short
but her legend lives on timelessly
Dating way back to Permian    period

drought dry only a fortnight, and no trace
of the swimmers--not a bloated bass or a skeletal carp
only a few lily pads burnt russet by the sun

all else, perverse interlopers from modernity:  
bullet banged beer cans, truck tires,  
and the ubiquitous bottle water plastic
waiting patiently for the next ice age

no sign of one fish that emitted a last gilled gasp here

deep beneath the bed though
progenitors rest, theirs and ours,
antediluvian, Permian, as permanent as the word allows
my footfalls above them today
tomorrow silent where they lay

They call it crude.

The dessicated then carboxilated, carbonified,
****** of dead Permian flesh.

This is the reason the salamanders die.
Corporeal concreted, mummified, fossilized.

This is the reason we dance.
Dirges of West Texas dirt romances.
Lost in the flares,
Caught in the gases blaring making nostrils glare.

Requiescat in pace.

All these women.
Dancing through the caliche,
Giving a reason to taste the air.
Through one breath of speechless.

The loam is never settled where boots tread and weather.
Destroying bedrock through hydrolic fracking to the earths core.

I land my toes in the sand of the Llano.
I ******* Mexicans, greasy, with cheese,
With.



Hot.
Sauce.



Dorthy never went to the fest of Oil.
But there's no place like home.
Her silver slippers or prosthesis feet placed instantaneously upon me.
Would bring me directly into a thorny,
Patch of Mesquite.

I am 14.6 billion years old. I am energy traveling at the speed of light,
I am a single proton with one orbiting electron, perfectly balanced
With quarks and bosons and higgs inside
And pieces of matter yet to be understood by man.
I am every star, every atom of Hydrogen fused to Helium.
I am a massive object of molten rock, cooling and fusing.
I am trilobite knee and dinosaur tooth,
Wooly mammoth hair fiber.
I am Permian Extinction, I am Ice Age, I am all surviving species.
I am most distant brothers of man, I am first language and first songs.
I am Bubonic Plague and Death
And life out of new molecules from old.
I am the Industrial Revolution,
I am Depression and Holocaust and oppression.
I am titanium and assembly line.
I am Perseid meteor shower and Halley ’s Comet.
I am every black hole,
Inside, another whole universe of me.

I am seconds young, and I have much to learn of
The multitudes of the universe, myself.

Blessed are the blind—
Reborn on new Permian shores,
Bone eyed hollow shells.

I drove down to the lake today
Where the water flowed in through the old spillway
Lazy and bored, I figured I'd just sit
Drink a beer or two and daydream a bit

I parked right next to a gnarled oak tree
In solitude where I wanted to be
Eighty eight point five played my favorite songs
I couldn't help myself, so I sang along

Till I had a fancy to explore
I opened up the rusty blue Dodge Ram door
All bundled tight in my wool poncho
I stepped out the truck into two below

Where the Permian red mud
crunched beneath my boots
Onto the flat full of geese and coots
The sky was depressing, dark and grey
Like you'd expect it to be on a funeral day

But I hadn't gone there to sulk or brood
Watching water fill the lake is always good
I walked a fair distance to the northeast side
Skipped a few rocks on the by and by

And just when I was sure that I was all alone
Up comes a hobo with a mangy redbone
I could tell by the look in his careful eye
That he was scared of me as to him was I

I put out my hand to introduce myself
Saying 'What's with the weather? It's cold as hell!'
He, 'That's a contradiction. It's about to snow'
Me, 'Yes, no, maybe and I just don't know'

He told me then that his name was Sam
He was down on his luck, but not on the flim flam
Trusting him I reached to scratch the red dog's ears
Something telling me there was nothing to fear

And Sam and I walked in unison
He did most of the talkin'-- me the listenin'
He pointed to a place in a far off nook
Where his tent was hid away in a secret crook

Sam said, 'It isn't much, but I call it home'
'I've gotta can o' beans and some stale corn pone'
So we sat on the ground and I lit a match
The wood smoke smell from the campfire patch

Making me think it was more of God's plan
That led me here to this homeless man
And together we ate with some plastic spoons
Chatting back and forth till way past noon

When my watch chime signaled it was time to go
To walk back to the spillway where the water flowed
Where Sam was my brother for one crazy day
Though I doubt that I'll ever see him again

Written by Sara Fielder © Feb 2012

The Badlands have
lost their battery charge.
There, I realized it's easier
to say "It is what it is"~
harder to do.

The Permian desert doesn't
care for sentimentality,
shriveling drivel in an oily
heatwave mustard gas mirage.

Thirst, cornmeal pancakes
and a left-handed horse to
get us out of an uninviting
cactus conflagration.
Not allot to say about this place.

Sara Fielder © May 2018