Bitterroots, Montana
after Bobbie McKibbin
The fog lifts off wheat fields
into the dawn midafternoon’s become.
Horses appear, disappear again to canvas.
I drive down the Bitterroot Valley. Air
opens before the car, reveals pavement,
lines white, yellow, still present in half-
hidden space.
It’s easy to see present, not present.
More difficult to see blankness as shadow,
to frame the open as always incomplete.
Published in Red Paint Hill
The fog lifts off wheat fields
into the dawn midafternoon’s become.
Horses appear, disappear again to canvas.
I drive down the Bitterroot Valley. Air
opens before the car, reveals pavement,
lines white, yellow, still present in half-
hidden space.
It’s easy to see present, not present.
More difficult to see blankness as shadow,
to frame the open as always incomplete.
Published in Red Paint Hill