An Odd Exhibit at Odds With—

Dinosaurs on the Prairie, Napoleon, North Dakota. Visited on June 5, 2021.

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To combine threshing
machines on a prairie,
nowhere you are ever
likely to visit,
is someone’s display
of resolve.

Powerless, brainless,
weary machines,
arranged
precisely
or approximately
by intuition,
establishing
the field
as a place
where something
confirmable
happened or could.

At first, without
qualification,
impressive …

But regarding
the owner’s motivation,
I find myself
speculating
compulsively,
hoping
to coax
explanation
or revelation
into words.

I intuit a message.

What is the message?

Some would say
there is no message,
would insist
this collection
is decoration
without lesson.

But on the sign
it is written, 
dinosaurs,
and I’ve met
one too many
locals
who believe
dinosaurs
never existed,
who insist
bones and fossils
are to test
one’s faith –
god’s false flags.

Where there is
no lesson,
there is
still meaning,
the urge
to metaphor, still.

That I confirm.

Momentary
revelations appear
on fields,
nowhere you
would be.

That I confirm.

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