Paradox Basin

There is fire on the opposite shore.
It is the ferryman burning his oars.
There is clatter from the opposite shore.
It is the ferryman dismantling boards
to feed to the current. He knows
what suffices
in this canyon. He knows,
in all the desert far above
there is not fuel enough.
Foreshortened, half-lit,
already I
claw sheer rock and rise.