There is no language extravagant
as this country,
tortured sandstone arabesques,
loose-bedded variegated
clays, have no counterparts in the
linear demarcations
of words, which cannot follow
how water,
flowing through soft rock,
carves demons,
twisted and grotesque, yet, for all that,
beautiful,
like the poisonous moonflower, or
alkali water
at high noon, and the smooth currents
of logic
break on their contorted forms, like
whitewater
on dark grey Pre-Cambrian metamorphic
rock.