I know nothing at all about Jared Carter, except that I like this poem a friend sent me:
Geodes
They are useless, there is nothing
To be done with them, no reason, only
The finding, letting myself down holding
To ironwood and the dry bristle of roots
Into the creekbed, into clear water shelved
Below the outcroppings, where crawdads sport
Through silt; clawing them out of clay, scrubbing
Away the sand, setting them in a shaft of light
To dry. Sweat clings in the cliff’s downdraft.
I take each one up like a safecracker listening
For the lapse within, the moment crystal turns
On crystal. It is all waiting there in darkness.
I want to know only that things gather themselves
With great patience, that they do this forever.
Jared Carter