"as we stretch our limbs
trace sky geometries
what would happen
if waxy root tendrils
coaxed a pebble to the surface
what would happen
if that stone was hoisted into your shoe
a hard calculus
compression of stories
to cause pause as you stub a toe"
In "A Valley Without Trees," the lowly onion that burrows into the soil and spends most of its life underground is cast as an interpreter or potential sensory prosthetic that offers a different way of understanding (and perhaps communicating with) the land, planet, and cosmos in which it grows.