Topography must be good for something

            The third mudslide this month has closed the
            highway out here
            on the west coast of a rapidly
            declining democracy
                            (for those of you still keeping score)
            although the wind isn’t concerned

“In the house was a kind of altar, and on the beams of the house and on the trees round it were hung human skeletons, head down.”
                                                        (Frazer, The Golden Bough)

            Dim phantom of solitude
            we turn toward you
            listen as the wind kicks leaves across the
            gravel of a path that’s
            too steep to climb
            in the rain