The Things You Learn

There's a lonely fact
you learn fast and hard
when you live in an empty state.
To dream of dropping off the coast
the way a rock might if it were thrown hard.
It's a dance you do when you turn from side to side,
looking east and west.
East is a comforter.
You cover up with trees
and hills and imagine forever in a horizon being pulled from
your finger tips. You think you want to smell fish and
salt and anything that's not dust settling on a fence.

It's a lonely fact
that you learn real slow
when you move west. There's always
dust on your back, the sound wind makes
through rocks and passes and the roads that brought
you here. Can you ever sing what it's like to smell rain in the desert?
Could you paint a night canopy over the lighted night sky?

Let me do this movement with you. Our east to west dance between
dust and mud, and a changing night sky.