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Landscapes, and: Facing West

Landscapes, and: Facing West LANDSCAPES / Jonathan Holden near Moab, Utah AU morning, drifting among the tall volumes of that rock library we kept our voices hushed, as if those rocks-- great wrinkled scholars hunched against the skywere frowning over matters far more momentous than we were while our voices, lightweight, silly as the voices of schoolchildren in such a company of elders, floated about their shoulders, rolled off their backs. Some landscapes invite us to fall in love with them. Their features, like the countenances of the very beautiful, remain ambiguous, composite of so many slowly dissolving human expressions that, like the faces of the famous, they promise intimacy with everyone at once. Though they be eyeless, though they hold their pose, perfectly demure, it's as if the gaze of a shadow or a tree, the empty gaze of even light itself held some indication, could answer us. Whichever way we turn, they turn with us slightly. We stop. They stop, waiting for us. Nothing moves. Like beautiful women, the rocks return our gaze, expectant. There is no need for speech. Their gaze means everything at once. 42 · The Missouri Review FACING WEST / Jonathan Holden When the moon rose http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The Missouri Review University of Missouri

Landscapes, and: Facing West

The Missouri Review , Volume 8 (2) – Oct 5, 1985

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Publisher
University of Missouri
Copyright
Copyright © The Curators of the University of Missouri.
ISSN
1548-9930
Publisher site
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Abstract

LANDSCAPES / Jonathan Holden near Moab, Utah AU morning, drifting among the tall volumes of that rock library we kept our voices hushed, as if those rocks-- great wrinkled scholars hunched against the skywere frowning over matters far more momentous than we were while our voices, lightweight, silly as the voices of schoolchildren in such a company of elders, floated about their shoulders, rolled off their backs. Some landscapes invite us to fall in love with them. Their features, like the countenances of the very beautiful, remain ambiguous, composite of so many slowly dissolving human expressions that, like the faces of the famous, they promise intimacy with everyone at once. Though they be eyeless, though they hold their pose, perfectly demure, it's as if the gaze of a shadow or a tree, the empty gaze of even light itself held some indication, could answer us. Whichever way we turn, they turn with us slightly. We stop. They stop, waiting for us. Nothing moves. Like beautiful women, the rocks return our gaze, expectant. There is no need for speech. Their gaze means everything at once. 42 · The Missouri Review FACING WEST / Jonathan Holden When the moon rose

Journal

The Missouri ReviewUniversity of Missouri

Published: Oct 5, 1985

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