Larry D. Thomas on Right Hand Pointing

L a r r y D . T h o m a s

Way Out West

Bare, desolate, windswept,

raw, depressing, dreary,

and pale are the seven

interlocking pieces

of its picture puzzle

of bleakness. Its wind’s

a phantom, tireless whetter

grinding its denizens

against the whetstone

of the desert

to dust. Its plant

and animal lives,

what few are fully lived,

are caught in a susurrous

sonata of three movements: “Youth,”

“Doomed Love,” and “Dotage.”