Molly Fisk: Orion Over Burning Man

Last night at dusk a log cabin rumbled past,

front porch with three rockers, gable window.

People sat and leaned, carried

on what must have been a truck-bed,

four wide steps not quite reaching ground.

Its cab, a tractor’s engine, towed

cabin and a trailing outhouse from which

raucous techno music blared. If you

could have closed your ears — it’s hard here

to close them — a century and a half

might slip away, a brighter twilight glaze 

the railings. You’d be the one in motion,

passing a fixed dwelling in your wagon, waving 

to ranch hands home from their dusty day

as the sun dropped behind these same blue hills.

You’d be heading toward a rumored spring

to settle the oxen, swallow a cold meal,

wrap the sleepy children in their blankets

and tell them one more time about Orion, 

able hunter from a distant past, his outline 

slung above you the way — now that darkness 

has descended on this alkali lake bed 

throbbing with disco and neon — he hangs 

over us tonight, history written in stars.

---

Copyright 2019 Molly Fisk