Stopped on the high east rim
of Johnson Mesa,
you can see golden grasslands
caressing
volcano country.
A place where buffalo died
long ago, near Folsom
so men could eat,
women might play hide and seek
among the cutbank arroyos.
A place where white fossil bones
first taught pioneer America about stones and extinction.
Bison still speaks
in the bated growl
of Capulin Volcano,
its last roar
just ten thousand years
ago.
The rusty red cinder cones
poke up through the bones
covered by golden grasslands,
lumenieres ever ready
to torch
hubris
human.

- T. Jackson King

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