Start with a base map, unlabeled terrain,
in shaded green and ochre, nude relief,
 
cool continental mass bathing in blue,
a face whose features now are visible,
 
unannotated, apolitical,
as if a mighty snow had settled here
 
and muffled every static line and letter,
earth as naked as the moon, but full
 
of lively color, from the fissured west
into the placid belly of the country,
 
eastward over quartzite ridge, carbonate
valley into southwest-trending s-curves
 
up the coast, a range two thousand miles,
two hundred fifty million years of mountain
 
formed in three successive waves of rock
uplifted and depressed, and in the west
 
it’s just begun. Nine hundred million acres
under time, under stress and stretches
 
of content. Reserved for a duration.
Blue-green grid of constant revolution.

This painting of a barn and barnyard near sundown
May be enough to suggest we don’t have to turn
From the visible world to the invisible
In order to grasp the truth of things.
We don’t always have to distrust appearances.
Not if we’re patient. Not if we’re willing
To wait for the sun to reach the angle
When whatever it touches, however retiring,
Feels invited to step forward
Into a moment that might seem to us
Familiar if we gave ourselves more often
To the task of witnessing. Now to witness
A barn and barnyard on a day of rest
When the usual veil of dust and smoke
Is lifted a moment and things appear
To resemble closely what in fact they are.