There Were Never Mountains

Look at the horizon. Flat
and pitted like the edge of an old razor.
We chase the skyline westward on the 90,
wide plains and the Badlands
toward Devil’s Tower and proof of a deeper forest.
Lines tell the truth.
Further on, foothills—we know better
than to call them mountains. The true trees
towered among stars, cities in their canopies,
dendritic roots pulsing in the wide, shallow earth,
till the god-scythes cut the mighty forests down to mesas, buttes,
ossified remainders—and our flat world floated free.
I would like to believe
that the ridges along the horizon
growing nearer as you sleep
are the long-dead stumps of world trees,
that once there was a place where we could touch
the roots of something greater,
and be connected: us, etc.