For James Turrell and Roden Crater

If we understand time
as a meadowlark on the lantern,
gold as the thumbprint moon
against the sheet of sky,

understand it as an aperture
that opens against shadow,
slides light into night's flat room,
and closes again,

we can stand silently,
bleached awake by this cone of sunshine
scattershot with desert dust,
and warm our faces with the bird sounds.

Rachel Cloud Adams is the editor for a nonprofit advocacy association and the founder/editor of the literary journal Lines + Stars. Her poems have appeared in The North American Review, Big Muddy, Salamander, Blueline, The Conium Review, CAROUSEL, Memoir, and elsewhere. She is a former Tueplo Press 30/30 contributor, a Pushcart Prize nominee, and the author of three chapbooks: What is Heard (Red Bird Press, 2013), Sleeper (Flutter Press, 2015), and Space and Road (Semiperfect Press, 2019). She lives in Baltimore, Maryland, and received her MA in writing from the Johns Hopkins University.