I create islands in my mind
spontaneously
according to random whims.
I conjure biomes and terrains,
raw landscapes
of saw tooth mountains cross-cut
with indiscriminate rivers
ejecting boulders and dragonfish
over basalt cliffs to a primordial ocean
by the second,
lands where strife unfolds
in its unremarkable forms
of predation on winter-stricken highlands
and hunger
on drought-dead plains
swept with dust,
low and abiding,
unfurling headlong
before the rain.
Also
I imagine lava rock teardrops
tossed across the sea like
accidents,
where a goatherd tends a flock
on club moss
among tortoise shells and pine cones
as salt dissolves
cairn stones, atom by atom,
cobbled haphazardly
atop a battered headland
beside a sun-bleached femur
above the gorge where, once,
eyes opened one dawn to dust
and light
shot through with the swell and crash
of time’s shore.