Don Stahl, Death Valley, 2016 (Artist Website)
35mm film scan
physics governs the generation of the wave
the movement into a chamber
cluttered with clippings
of undulant plants and fish
wagging out of crevices
in the reef
I was rapt
by the wave
curling across the ribs and outcrop
of this flaming canyon
I followed
in procession with the rush
of wind and Sulphur
angling toward this bitter assembly
of love’s last vestiges
along the columns of light
a tuft of volcanic rock
juts from the compound
hieroglyphics, still raised
after double-digit centuries,
outline the reenactment
not the birth
how the foam
captured the ace
how he rode the wave
inside itself