So the first one I'm going to read
is titled Out West, which I wrote coming back
from my grandma's funeral, and we were driving through--
we were driving through Utah, Nevada and Utah,
and I just like completely lost my sense of scale,
and I imagine somebody will have some experience with this.
So this is titled, Out West.
Refuse the old means of measurement.
Rely instead on the thrumming wilderness of self.
Listen, you have been lost for some time.
Taking comfort and being home to any wandering thing.
Sheep and brown cows graze your heart pocket.
Antelope and bison lap the great lake of your eye,
and in your ear the black bear winters.
You name your dawn shadow 'rabbit.'
You name your dusk shadow 'spur.'
And the river that cuts you as it runs west?
You name it 'persistence.'
Look, if you could bear sobriety you'd be sober.
If you could bear being a person you would no longer
be an iron bluff.
Do not wander.
We are all apportioned a certain measure of stillness.