At the Bomb Testing Site

At the Bomb Testing Site


At noon in the desert a panting lizard
waited for history, its elbows tense,
watching the curve of a particular road
as if something might happen.


It was looking at something farther off
than people could see,
an important scene
acted in stone for little selves
at the flute end of consequences.


There was just a continent
without much on it
under a sky that never cared less.
Ready for a change, the elbows waited.
The hands gripped hard on the desert.

William Stafford

Posted over on Poetry Foundation

William Stafford, “At the Bomb Testing Site” from The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems.