Last updated on September 1st, 2025
Poem by Scott Neuffer
by Scott Neuffer, the Sierra Nevada Ally
This story was produced by the Sierra Nevada Ally, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news outlet focused on civics, climate, and culture. License: Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International.
the desert mountains east of Carson City
and each sinew hard brown or burnt purple
as I drive home from work.
Calling this tableau mysterious unfastens
our origins: Canaan, America, Nevada.
Between two mountains an aperture:
plume of dust from a dirt bike in the sage.
I wonder how I could tell you
the mind tilts at obscene angles.
These ranges offer silence beyond this traffic.
I feel a squirrely desire to disappear.
Each day I drop my son at the green park
down in the valley where he walks to school.
At home he’ll watch me watching him,
his eyes so bright, his hands slender, clean.
Each day I hug my daughters out of instinct,
their hair the soft gold of a promise.
When sunset patters on the west mountains,
they’ll doze like fairies.
Here, now, the wind, the relentless sage.
Deep in the eastern canyons lie rusted cars,
refrigerators, bags of trash.
You can hear coyotes wailing
though nights are calm at the house.
I’ll sleep while I can.
I’ll think of naming everything that matters and how
before bad news, we were just living.
