The Boundary Stone

Amid the smoking ruins of some earthly apocalypse, and with only a bone lit from the remaining fires, the narrator of this remarkable poem wanders. He comes upon an enormous hole in a desert torched to glass and, without pause, tosses himself in. There, in the dark terrains below, he sets out in search of his beloved. His pilgrimage takes him deep through riverbed and faulting rock, through mesmeric canyons and caverns oncely scribed, through windswept barrens and landscapes becoming luminous and alive. It is a stunning descent that at all times leads up.

The Boundary Stone is a magical, near mythical journey of transcendence and renewal. Its telling is stark, as if an emanation of the very absence it evokes. In this it haunts, yet the elision leaves entry for imagery wholly given to soar - on wing among the wonders of the vast interiors themselves.

C von Hassett is a writer, editor, and publisher of Riot Material magazine. He lives mostly in Los Angeles.