Storming Toward a Precipice
A diesel freight truck
roars toward us.
A precipice is no mirage
for its metal plunge.
It is headlong nevertheless.
"It carries its own storm,"
I say dryly, feeling
my tongue wet my lips.
Trapped steel storming,
the faint line just so,
just inches
just split time,
just nothing more
than luck keeps us alive.
The mirage of metal storming
is a precipice, no mirage.
Copyright Credit: Simon Ortiz, "Storming Towards a Precipice" from After and Before the Lightning . Copyright © 1994 by Simon Ortiz. Reprinted by permission of University of Arizona Press.