Driving past security my father tipped

his hat at the guard

who waved him on.  The badge

on my father's chest worn

not to name authority but

to measure exposure, the point

at which his daily risk

might trip him up. When he drove the hills

toward home the desert turned

under him, sage and sand

ground to dust, rocks overtaken by a violet glow.

All the while minerals

touched us, particulates

combing the air and marking us

invisibly changed.  In the dust storm

the desert stuck to me like silt, a line

drawn around my mouth and nose.

His back to me, his face

pressed into the receiver

my father said the guards had orders

to shoot to kill. What they held

behind them was a question

of life and death:

the rods delicately working

at the purist's calculations and the tower

casting itself clean across the river, ore

reduced to powder, a golden substance

diffusible as breath.

                        -- Nancy Dickeman

                        The Far Field: August 14, 2012

Going Deeper

 FlashHouse

 Hanford's Air Releases