The Mistakes We Made At Antelope Island

The year I moved east of childhood

I finally met the bison and the great blue 

heron, and the briny blue blood of the land 

I live on. I can now name the common grackle, 

the northern flicker, and the western swallowtail 

butterfly drinking purple weekends.

I wonder if we are the first to midwife this valley

through death, Earth carrying the mistakes 

we made when she was young and thawing.

We don’t get to know our tethers to this life 

until we’re at risk of losing our grip. Walking 

a fading boundary, we try not to disintegrate 

into one another. Today the sky, so blue, 

it cuts like ice.