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Posts Tagged ‘desert’

When It’s Hardest

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on June 15, 2021| Leave a Comment »

 
In a time of drought
let me choose to love you
the way yucca blooms—
creamy, abundant, soft—
despite drought.
No. Because drought.

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Why It Matters What We Say

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 21, 2021| 2 Comments »


 
 My tears mingle with yours and the dry world is watered again.
            —Jude Janett
 
 
Parched and dusty,
the inner desert
forgets it was once a wetland.
Barren of confidence,
arid with self-disdain,
it forgets how to grow things
not covered in thorns
and spines.
 
Then you with your love
reach across the afternoon,
a brief shower of words,
and the whole inner world
remembers how it is to be lush,
to be nurturing, to be green.

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Three Snapshots from the Desert

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on February 7, 2021| Leave a Comment »

in my palm
a tiny pelvis—
birth of the universe
 
*
 
with such large hands
this petroglyph
holds the past
 
*
 
bright scent of juniper
no longer there—
still I sniff my fingertips

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Castilleja scabrida

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 6, 2020| 2 Comments »

 

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It’s not that they are hiding—

it’s more that they know

the power of a red dress.

Between slabs of red sandstone,

the tiny yellow green flowers

of the desert paintbrush

decorate themselves

with bright red bracts,

colorful flame-like spears

that attract butterflies,

hummingbirds and bees.

 

It’s what we do to survive,

those of us born plain,

those of us otherwise ignored.

I think of the homely girl I was

who wanted to wear

gold combs in her hair

to the middle school dance,

as if something shiny and bright

might attract the honey boys.

 

I want to go back to that gym

with its streamers and balloons

and take the gold combs

out of her mousy brown hair

and tell her the brightest parts of her

are inside. I want to tell her

that being a small green

and yellow flower

will serve her.

 

I want her to know

that a day will come

when she’ll walk in the desert

and feel so at one

with the cliffs and the scrub brush,

the lichen and the Mormon tea,

and that in that moment

when she loses her sense of herself

and merges with slickrock

and paintbrush and sky

it is then she will be most beautiful.

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Gratitude

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 29, 2020| 5 Comments »

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Gratitude, it happens,

needs less room to grow

than one might think—

is able to find purchase

on even the slenderest

of ledges, is able

to seed itself

in even the poorest of soils.

 

Just today, I marveled

as a small gratitude

took root

in the desert of me—

like a juniper tree

growing out of red rock.

 

If I hadn’t felt it myself,

I might not

have believed it—

but it’s true,

one small thankfulness

can slip into an arid despair

and with it comes

a change in the inner landscape,

the scent of evergreen.

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One Especially When It Rains

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 15, 2020| 2 Comments »

 

 

deep desert canyon of the heart—

it remembers when

it was ocean

 

 

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A Small Bouquet from Grand Staircase-Escalante and Salida

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 28, 2019| 2 Comments »

Hi friends, I was off camping in the desert for a few days, then travelled to the glorious little town of Salida for a reading, and finally back home … here are a few small poems from the last few days … 

 

 

hell’s backbone grill—

the mouth begins to thrill

from two-hundred ten miles away

 

*

 

in the slot canyon—

knowing myself as water

moving through these walls

 

*

 

wind storm in the desert—

even my thoughts

fill with sand

 

*

 

this revolving door—

certainty, uncertainty, certainty

uncertainty

 

*

 

she sweeps the leaves

from the walk—

red carpet in reverse

 

*

 

waking in a blizzard

while in my ears, my scalp

still red sand

 

 

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One Time Signature

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 6, 2017| Leave a Comment »

 

 

 

trickle in the desert—

it takes so little water

to make a song

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A Strange Knowing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on May 26, 2015| 5 Comments »

It is not only that the desert longs for water.
Of course the water longs for desert, too.
Any raindrop can fall and get lost in an ocean,
but to fall where it’s parched, where just
the smallest amount of wet can launch a hundred
hundred blooms, can set ten thousand thousand
seeds into frothy flight, oh. Now that is something
worth falling for. No imaginary desert. The real thing,
all prickle and spine and thorn and barb.
And the petals after. The heat can spend months
holding off just the briefest sprinkle. But then
no one said it was going to be easy, this going
where we’re needed most. Patience is the marriage
of sweetness and sting. To bring life one must also be alive.

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Logic Goes to the Desert

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on September 3, 2014| 1 Comment »

Stop trying to understand it,
this falling in love with the scent
of cliff rose and heliotrope.
Just fall into the sweetness
and keep on falling.

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