Sleep

The land sleeps. Earth spins. Clouds streak the sky, some brushed, some dissolving, brightening into pink. Water suspends into air, light scatters through water. Crickets. A desiccated thistle, some broken grasses. Land sleeps and wakes around the circumference of Earth, dreaming, digesting, then softening, melting. When land awakens on the northern coast of California, after the huge tease of autumn, after our first deluge, she is uniquely situated. The seeds are newly arranged as are the species. Each sleep, too, is unique. No dream exactly alike. The deer, only visible by the white fur of their tails, move like flames in the grasses away from me.