Line Of Descent Poem by Forrest Gander

Against the backdark, bright
riband flickers of heat lightning. Nearer
hills begin to show, to come clear
as a hard, detached
and glimmering brim
against light lifting there. And here, pitched over
the braided arroyo choked with debris,
a tent, its wan, cakey,
road-rur color. On the front stake, two
green dragonflies, riding each other, pause,
Look! cries the boy, running, the father behind him
running too—
and the canyon opening
out in front of them its magisterial consequence, cramming
vertiginous air down its throat—
to snatch him
from the scarp.