Wet Camp

We have been here before, but we are lost.
The earth is black and the trees are bent
and broken and piled as if the game
of pick-up-sticks were ready and the children
hiding, waiting their useless turns.
The west bank of the river is burned
and the Santa Cruz has poured onto it.
The grit brown ponds
sit like dirty lilies in the black.
The afternoon is gone grazing
over the thin mountains.
The night is colder here without leaves.
Nothing holds up the sky.