A Few Formations I Attempted
To Assemble In The Mountains

A face. A face. A rocky adumbration. Sects of smootheness in the jagged slabs. The ears, the eyes, the mouth. The shadows of a cloud. A glint. A gleam. A passing light. A face. An arm. A stake. An almost statue, which emerges in the murmur of a man. He clears his throat, declares to no one in particular. This is God’s country. Sometimes, it speaks to you if you listen. Hush. You close your eyes. You open them. Green eyes. Green shaded snow. Green peaks of nothing. Trees like nothing. Sky like snails. Something like a snake. A shoelace. Something glimmering. A fleck of gold. A candy wrapper, caught. A frost-tipped spoon, stuck in the dirt. Some muddy, ragged footprints. Fewer footprints. No more footprints. Slick slopes, upward. Downward. Then, an opening. An open view. An overlook. Out onto sects of smootheness. Silence. Nothing. Almost outlines, begging into being. Then, a light, like switches flicked. A squinting, strange, almost museum. Of stages, windows, swirling spiral staircases of statues. Hundreds of them, faces, faces. Hundreds of inscriptions in the wind. The wind, which always sounds like a recording of the wind, no matter how you try to tell yourself it sounds. Sometimes, it speaks. Sometimes, it speaks. Sometimes, it very nearly speaks. It says. You see. A face. The ears, the eyes, the mouth.