Annual grasses dry and pale as sand, the awns and seedheads catching, sharpened barbs. A month ago this field was soft with filaree.
Insects rasp and skirl, a lizard slithers out of sight.
Last week you held a nestling in your two cupped hands. Today we count the thin shells scattered. But see, from the dry ground rises a flash of feathered blue. We stir up dust with every step. The Sentinels stand above us, black plugs that used to be the red-hot backbone of a mountain, that takes so long to erode.