At the Bomb Testing Site

By William Stafford

.

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.

.

“At the Bomb Testing Site” is reprinted from The Way It Is: New & Selected Poems by William Stafford (Graywolf Press, 1998) by permission of the Estate of William Stafford.