Feoffment with Livery of Seisin, Snow Canyon, Utah, 6 March 2019

I snap a twig from the dry tree next to me.

In a few days it will be spring, which means

So many things. I dig down in the soft sand

Of the damp wash and bury the twig, along

With a coin. I pronounce the magic words,

Invoke the magic name of my mythical king.

Now and forever, for all my heirs, I own this

Land. No one else knows this, but it’s true.

I own the dark green scrub, the broken stone.

I own the sky now polishing its clouds. I own

This basalt outcrop, this cottonwood, this

Poem. Because I am not the poet, am not any

One of the creatures that pass through here,

Not even the land, which can never be mapped

By me exactly, anyway. I am the name that I am,

And I own, the moment I name. Spring. I am.