To the Edge of the Sown

On the side of a mountain road, heavy rain pounds at my window to wake me from a dream of gears and belts from my old job. The belts snap and fall off and the gears jam and slip but I look up at the roiling chaos of the clouds and realize it doesn’t matter. I climb the mountain to the old haunted hotel and there are skiers coming down the dry dirt slopes. The Hood peak has punctured the clouds and let the water out. The pines sift the sky and hold it up so I can get under to the flat green discs of the farmland where the sun shines on fields while the irrigation chain whirls. I pass little towns with big signs where little babies talk. The diners are empty and the gas stations are full and it seems like the whole population is just passing through. The horses and cows eat the land that’s not flat enough for the green discs and the last big trees are allowed to grow. The road climbs again and I can see everything behind but only a cliff in front on a mountain called Steen that I call The Edge of the Sown. I climb the mountain and the sun sets on the discs and squares of the sown and over the cliff the blue desert goes on until it looks like glass and then it fades in the smoke of the fires.