Recorded in my father's-in-law truck on a dirt road between Spanish Fork and Springville, on my way to Hobble Creek. It was raining, and I decided to turn around, but the road was deserted so I just stopped right there and recorded this episode. I didn't mention in the recording that this poem is a villanelle, which is a quirky little form that requires a lot of planning on the poet's part. The repeated lines that echo and then repeat in the final stanza? That's the villanelle at work. There's usually something kind of audacious about a villanelle, but this poem pulls it off so effectively, it is as if the entire form were created just for this one use, right here.

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