“Normally this formation weathers out along high, narrow, and short ridges that in airplane view resemble the convolutions of calves’ brains.”
–Oklahoma Geological Survey, Beavers Bend State Park Guide Book XI, 1963
The Choctaw knew this land,
Knew the way it could be lived on,
The way it could be wasted
–as a kill is wasted for sport
–as a life is wasted, as is the tree, as is the heart.
The ridges of the rock formation
Shatter the sky, and nothing
Remains as it was in the pattern
We make half in our heads
And half in the metaphor of animals
Living with no thought of death.
–Shaun Perkins
Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry 