First is light on stone. 

How it shines off Comb Ridge, 80-mile obstacle for woolly mammoth, the only crossing at the foot of river. Bones rise from ancestral slaughters, a bifurcated trunk glyphed 20 feet high above Sand Island. Mule’s Ear Diatreme, throat of an extinct volcano, south. Backlit by Raplee Anticline, it rises over fields strewn with red garnets, birthstone fire ants covet. On a wall in Chinle, she takes you by surprise, pregnant star woman, Anasazi baseball man, overlain with a Navajo circle to steal their medicine, turn eyes from the canyon mouth overlooking river delta. Desert varnished, the sort Anasazi chose for infinite spirals. A golden eagle lay dead there, time’s offering. Moonflowers bloom, sacred datura.

A narcotic whiff in desert air.