Vermillion Stone Poem by David Whalen

The sinuousness of sand dunes
Wind abraded stone
The sun pinwheels
Cross the sky
One feels so all alone

Pictographs on canyon walls
Pottery shards and bone
Distant dancing dust devils
Muted howls and muttered moans

Ancient beds of dry lakes deep
Vermillion cliffs, wind hone
Canyon keeps, spirits sleep
In beds of petrified stone

Time locked tight in grains of sand
In manic tint and tone
Hourglass sifting centuries, and
Mesas flat, wind mown

One feels time locked
In vermillion rock
One feels the ageless sky
The stars, the wind
Without, within

Alone…as you and I