At the Old Place

The beak of dawn's rooster pecked

in the sky, and early Ella

called us.

I awoke to worse than sleep,

saw things clear beyond the barn,

and Ella older.

WILLIAM STAFFORD

That was years-barns-ago.

But should another rooster crow

Id be more wise,

listen gladder in the dawn,

wake at once to more than day-

to Ella always.

AUGUSTINE

Following a dry creek without a bend,

he heard the rocks as they listened

to what lay beyond them; and then the sage

reaching handholds over the ridge:

green continuing lest the continent break,

and one leaf crossing another for the lizards' sake.

Alive as an arid place becomes,

the land became wise with scorpions,

stung just alive enough to die,

convulsed by the master, rhetorically.

Mountains maintained stone on up,

granite and sliding shale on the heavenward slope.

He had gone far enough on the rock

not to be able to come back:

cupped through summer, the valley melted;

left in the sky, the sky awaited

a storm to cancel all his fear.

And then when one small snowflake slit the air-