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.”