Weary of whys, we named you.
Gray granite mask, spruce-cowled,
cavern eyes intent on
blue monotony, wearing a chert-pale
scar where only last week
cliffs hung, the downgorge timbers
a talus of matchsticks, the road
buried—whether oracle or
god-monolith, human hunger
as much as the whitewater roar
beneath you, fashioned you.
A universal need
to ascribe hate to what shifts
our standpoint’s customary
furnishings, the bitter chaff
of fact patching a breached
belief, assumes its local
name: Skull Bluff.