Our eyes travel into blue haze
forty miles, and I tell my son
about our several-great grandparents
who lived just west of this summit.
Their graves lie in a fold of distance
where their voices once mixed
into the blur of constant winds
like this rush now in our ears.

I recollect a photograph
of my grandfather – high cheekbones
and straight, jet hair, in a wool suit,
seated on a wagon, eyes squinting.
It must have been springtime
because of the flat dry grass,
Turn of the century, before my mother,
yet he looked as though he saw me.

With the wind, this afternoon feels
like it will last forever –
the sun just past zenith but steady,
the clouds heaped to the heights
above flint-smooth edges of horizon.
Monarchs bob an invisible trail
as they migrate through and past us
as far as we can see, none of them alone.