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Harney Lake Still Life
Long and smooth, this petrified stone,
is a birch limb that hefts like a bone:
Millions of years flash in my hand and are gone.
Here where I crouch, the inland sea is gone;
Oreodonts and miniature horses are bone,
Buried deep beneath stone.
A modern scavenger, I search for stones
That will remain immutable when I’m gone:
My flesh clings briefly to my bones.
Head down, I sift sand for bones.
The Harney sky is blue and hard as stone.
Circling me, floating on hollow bones,
A Northern Harrier stoops into grass and is gone.
—Sandra M. Jensen
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