Thanks, first, for your clarification of my queries about the last poem in 
this poem. Again, I like the tone and atmosphere of this piece. And again, I 
have a few queries. I felt that the qualification of the word `empty´ which 
begins in line 4 was rather separated from the first appearance of the word 
in line 1. Two items of information intervene - the visual description and 
the uncertainty as to species - and I wonder if this brreaks the flow one 
would expect between lines 1 and 4. Also, I wonder whether line 3 is needed, 
but as before, there may be a reason why the inability to identify the 
species has significance and I´ve just missed it. If line 3 could go, 
though, then lines 1 and 2 could be reversed, bthereby bringing `empty´ and 
its qualification together. Having said that, I was also puzzled about the 
very use of `empty´. A tower, posts and pole might well appear in an `empty´ 
landscape, but when houses and trailers are present, and presumably in 
sufficient quantities to justify their presence being described as a 
`march´, then it seems to me that the landscape is no longer `empty´. 
Another point I wondered about is really the same thing three times over - 
the references to precise species. In S2 line 2, why are turkey buzzards the 
only other species that would be able to see the prey? Wouldn´t an eagle be 
able to see it? And again, do we need to know that the narrator is unable to 
distinguish hawk, falcon and kite. Ditto the wasps and hornets. These three 
queries are really the same as my question about S1 line 3, of course and 
the recurrence of the same feature does rather lead me to suspect that this 
is deliberate and I´m missing something (Oh, how many times have I written 
those words!?) Finally, I wondered why you chose to use `remnants´ in the 
final couplet rather than the more expected `remains´....not that there´s 
anything wrong with the unexpected.
Anyway, these were the things that struck me. I hope this is useful.

Best wishes,   Mike

Mike, thanks for the questions.  I probably do not have answers as you may 
wish them, but...

The poem comes from trips I've made through the deserts of Eastern 
Washington, north and near Yakima and Toppenish, partly by freeway.  I used 
to see more empty land, but now cell phone and satellite towers dot the 
hilltops, now split levels and dirty trailers climb higher and higher up the 
slopes.  To me, the filling of what perhaps should be empty is melancholy.

You want logic, I have none except that hornet and wasp should be hornet and 
yellow-jacket, but wasp works better in the poem. And I wanted to use a long 
Latin word such as unidentifiable in what is at heart a simple A/S poem.

Smiles.

Gary



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