Listeners

Late in the afternoon, the live oaks crouched on the hill.

The wind falls steadily out of the mountains, so the grass slithers against the grass, the branch chafes the restless branch.

Above the trees, below the mountains, the hilltop has been scraped, replaced by three lines of antennas radiating from a colossal central telescope. A

“wye.” I

stare up through the bowl of mesh, through its empty diamonds

and in one frame the green of the evening star, a frozen bud.

If I should ask my senses I would know I was barely here.