At the Bomb Testing Site

At noon in the desert a panting lizard

waited for history, its elbows tense,

watching the curve of a particular road

as if something might happen.

It was looking at something farther off

than people could see, an important scene

acted in stone for little selves

at the flute end of consequences.

There was just a continent without much on it

under a sky that never cared less.

Ready for a change, the elbows waited.

The hands gripped hard on the desert.

-- William E. Stafford

.

William Stafford, "At the Bomb Testing Site" from

The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems. Copyright

1960, 1962 1998 by William Stafford and the Estate of William Stafford.

Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc. on behalf of

Graywolf Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota, www.graywolfpress.org

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