Saguaro (2)

i followed the scent
of a white saguaro blossom
deep into the desert,

counted well
how my thirst would develop,

counted the hours
before my withered body
would embrace the shifting sand.

counted them the same as the hours
of a life at sea,

failing to appreciate
that such a creature could endure in the absence
of so much more than water,

failing to understand
how different something as simple as respiration could be,

failing to predict
that i would stumble into a lack of oxygen,
turning so many beautiful shades of

red, blue, violet –

becoming a flower myself,
blossoming briefly
next to you.

Saguaro (1)

does water miss the saguaro
blossoming in the desert?

does air miss the satellite?

does earth remember the edible red fruit
after it has decomposed?

what is left to remember fire?

Mea Culpa

i thought of you as
something other than a leaf
caught in the current.

Untitled

through the end of 17 and well into 18,
i prayed every night for the love of a girl
i had known since childhood.

in doing so,
i committed what i think of now
as two of the most egregious errors.

the first,
and lesser of the two,
was to believe that anyone
would be listening to
my arrogance.

the second,
and far greater of the two,
was to believe that only one person in the world
possessed what i thought anyone should consider beautiful.
make that three of the most egregious errors.

now,
when i meet someone new,
i try to find something beautiful right away.

now,
instead of praying for love,
i hold in my pocket the thing i found,
withdrawing it in those moments between moments,
and falling in love over and over again.

My Children

some photographers guard their photographs
like they guard their hearts.
eyes looking forward,
click.
eyes looking over a shoulder,
click.
a clothesline and a horizon,
click.
a cowboy and a wind farm,
click.
click.
click.

my children.
my children.
stay here with me, my children.

because i am those eyes,
looking in both directions.

because i am that clothesline,
stretched between two poles.

because i am that cowboy.

Sky

sky and i became acquainted
in madrid last weekend
and he told me that anything important
should be said in exactly six words ...

... and now i find myself speechless.

Residual

i can still feel music,
moist on my hands, chest, and cheek
and our eyes
wrapping themselves around corners,
cars,
and street lamps,
only tiny points of light now
from where you are.

A Tribute to Lewis Carroll

no longer contented
with frivolous things,
like cracker-jack boxes
and mood-colored rings,
i sit and i listen
as a mockingbird sings
of a boy forming glory
from papers and strings.

the world with its wisdom,
and knowledge,
and hope
knows not of the bliss
with which children elope,
as they dance and they sing
on life's untethered rope
and remind us
of frivolous things
now remote.

Anything

i imagine i
could write about
anything
and you,
reading my anything,
turning it into
your something:

your something
(my anything)
and my something
(my anything)
would argue endlessly ...

one reason we never talk
about something,
anything having become
very comfortable
in its place.

Forgetting

last night, i dreamed of forgetting the world.

i forgot listening to the flute
from the ridge overlooking water canyon,
but notes still echo there.

i forgot dancing in the rain
at the base of the sandia mountains,
but rain and dancing continue.

i forgot watching the flames
as old man gloom burned to the ground,
but burning does not end.

last night, i dreamed of forgetting the world,
and in the process,
forgot myself.

Hate

it is not wrong to hate
and it is not a sign of weakness to be afraid.
there are things in life
that must be hated,
and things that should be feared.

if you hate intolerance,
and hate it with your breath,
your eyes,
your throat,
you will not be less than you were before.

if you fear silence,
and fear it with your skin,
your hair,
your stomach,
you will not be diminished.

hate is there for you to use
as you wish,
and fear may serve you well
in so much as your eyes remain open.

Oreo Cookies

did you ever notice the lack of finality
in an oreo cookie?

the only thing that can save you,
once you start in on them,
is the thought that you might have
to tear open another package
or,
worse,
drive all the way to the store
for another box.

why am i telling you this? for one reason:

should you happen to notice someone
with a dazed expression,
sunken features,
and bags under their eyes,
stumbling down the aisles of the ghetto smiths
or the 24-hour wal-mart,
or around back of the frontier restaurant,
where rocks are two dollars,
and oreos are three,

you might discover an unexpected empathy
because this passion is so far out of my control.

Spring

i remember when spring lasted all year.
finches hiding gold beneath their ruffled feathers
would start fighting for the best perch
at six in the morning in january
and the garter snake
that lived under the rocks in the front garden
would still be waiting for them
in december.

this year, spring lasted just under eight minutes.
i stood and watched
as dry branches turned into chinese snowballs,
then melted into puddles of mud
and in the time it takes to remember what happened,
the mud will have rolled over into a tortoise,
and dragged itself under a thick,
white blanket.

how is it that we accelerate so rapidly
toward our final moments?
what was it about childhood that stretched
every second into the look you gave me
when i told you that i loved you
for the first time?
where is that kind of awareness now?

The Ocean

some,
like those plunged into the depths of the ocean,
must struggle upwards,
always upwards,
toward the light and the surf,
toward the sun and the drifting wood,
toward the day and the night
and the laughter of children
and the chatter of seagulls.

i,
born on the surface,
floating with the plankton,
let myself sink and struggled to rise,
dove again into the black depths,
wanting the sensation of
burning lungs,
burning joints,
desperate eyes,
lips pinched tightly between trembling teeth.

can the experience ever be the same?
one thrown,
one going willingly,
one forced,
one wondering in the direction of
one in pain,
one swimming into an abstraction?

can the crests of waves ever empathize
with the corpse
at the bottom of the sea?
can they ask of the bloated remains
that rise to the surface:
what was it like?
how did it feel?

i wish i had been there –
there on that day
when you were dragged so far down.
i wish i had struggled upward with you,
choking on my own lack of oxygen,
wondering if i would ever reach the surface.

i wish i had been there when you

broke through the waves,
laughed with the wind,
and jumped into the sky.

Just for a Moment

just for a moment,
set aside what we say
about a man and a woman,
about a man and a man,
about a woman and a woman.

just for a moment,
ignore the dark corners of
our Bible,
our Torah,
our Qur'an,
our Kitáb-i-Aqdas.

just for a moment,
resign to that hidden place in your mind,
where acidic thoughts are neutralized
with ash and lime,
the memories of what our Fathers have done in the name of
our God,
our Holy God,
our Most Holy God.

just for a moment,
a moment
a moment
a moment no longer than the life of a Saint,
let these things rest,
while i pray for the answers
to all of your questions.

Ideas

what is it that makes you pause
in the middle of a poem,
raise your head,
spinning from the assault
of so many words –
phrases –
little pieces of thoughts
not quite fully formed?

when someone else has written
your ideas for you one hundred times –

your ideas now –
your ideas in the future –
your ideas before you were born –

what is it that makes you
write them down for yourself,
reiterating what poets have,
from the first mind and the first mirror,
been whispering to themselves –
that which now rises from their graves
in fragments –
broken pieces of sentences
retaining just enough
of their original intention
to remind you that

life in your mind is
life in my mind

and now i can remember myself
painting my door in chaotic swirls of emotion
as you did when the thought occurred to you

that the infinite void hanging
over your pillow every night
is the same for everyone
and everyone sings to themselves
to fill the space with something because

how could so much space
be so empty?

Montpeyroux

i opened my eyes this morning
to the sun shining on your face.
mediterranean, like your brother.
your expression calm,
your breathing mild,
your eyes closed and you,
peaceful, dreaming.

it was no different than waking up
in montpeyroux one winter years ago
after too much wine
and too much french.
hardly making it back up the stairs,
throwing my culture shock at you
like a brick
and you catching it,
turning it over into a pillow,
laying it under my head.

now there's only pride in front of us,
pride and memories,
and me,
still struggling up the stairs,
and you,
still pulling the down comforter
up around my shoulders.

Dried Bark

dried bark scattered on the ground
holding down the rain,
telling stories of
anxious wind lavishing bare branches,
dew-speckled trees braced,
budding.

dried bark turning over in my hands,
picked apart into
shimmering golden-brown worlds,
sublimating in the sun
fading in my grasp.

Words

i sat down to write tonight,
keying in a long string of words
who felt a bit uneasy together,

but who expressed the idea
well enough for me to look at,

well enough for me to see in them
a blurry image of two jealous eyes and,
with a careless gesture of the hand,

the kind you make when
mosquitoes have given you
too much trouble,

wave them away.

The Sacred Number

this is poetry too,
the grey-haired air whispers,
peering down
through golden rims
on its way to the twin silos
of regular and decaf.

this is poetry too,
words echo in my mind
as i return to Sylvia Plath
and he returns to his chair,
leans forward with everyone else
into PowerPoint slides spilling from
an immaculate screen.

this is poetry too,
words dissolve into the engaged conference room
as i try to comprehend the lives consumed

calculating the seven digits
of the sacred number:

the number of the sun swallowing the moon,
the number of eyes closing,
the number of atrocities before we find our end.

Guru

The syllable gu means shadows
The syllable ru, he who disperses them,
Because of the power to disperse darkness
the guru is thus named.

- Advayataraka Upanishad 14 - 18, Verse 5


i carried you with me,
naomi shihab nye,
from albuquerque to los angeles,
excited to continue words under the words,
looking at your picture,
waiting to check my bags,
thinking that i might find your mother
somewhere in the crowd,
smiling with the same expression.

i have to apologize,
though,

as i never realized that such a short trip
could be so dangerous for you,
never anticipated sitting down
next to a woman from taos
who would be moved by your image as well,
but moved in such a different way:

     nuke the muslims
     (she was so calm when she said this),
     nuke them all and then i can sleep at night.
     i don’t like bush,
     he embarrasses me,
     he scares me,
     but the muslims,
     they scare me most of all.
     there won’t be peace
     until we’re rid of them.
     my guru tells me that the final step
     in the movement from gu to ru
     is to open my arms,
     but i don’t know if i can do it.

she finishes
as i sit there next to her,
with your book in my hand,

wondering if she has ever
read any of your poetry.

The Piano

why this knife twisting?
why me twisting it?
to remember?

and do i withdraw it from myself to forget?

does the wound heal?
does the blood stop running?

and,
if it does not heal,
if it does not stop running,
is it possible that each drop might sound as

one note played on the piano?

Disappearing

i wonder if you could actually disappear
into a city as small as albuquerque.

i wonder who would come looking,
the blind people who want to find you
or the seeing people,

the hundreds of thousands of people
with their eyes open,
eyes looking in every direction,
except yours?

where do the homeless go
when you look the other direction?

do you remember the tuft of grass
pushing itself through a crack in the sidewalk


on vale between the irish coffee house
and the outpost performance space?

that would be the place that would welcome me,
at least for a small part of the afternoon.

Sing

sing,
but only from the edges
of the white cliffs.

dance,
but only in the shadows
of the great dunes.

write,
but only on the walls
of the silent oubliette.

fly,
but if you find
that it is the wind
who supports you,
who lifts you,
then return to me
and fly no more.

Cancer

we put our cancer on the shelf last night
before we went to bed.

wanting it back,
we watched it beat against the wall,
watched it rise and fall
with the rhythm of a heart
next to the swarovski crystal swan
and the valentines bear
with the requisite red patch
bearing the words “I ove You”,
the “L” having succumbed
to a starving kitten
years ago.

in the morning,
we rushed for the shelf,
a ritualistic display of our excitement
at having it back inside of us,


there, where we could nurture it again,
this single cell,
which had chosen
so randomly to make
so many copies of itself,

dreaming of the day
it would burst into our blood,
a glorious metastasis,
and,
as it sent us trembling
into our final moments,

listening,
euphoric in the silence of the words
trying to escape
from between our clenched teeth,
but never quite making it.

Alone

when i woke up this morning,
i found no one in the house.
i looked outside,
but there was no one in the street.
boarding a bus with no driver,
i made my way to an empty airport and onto a plane,
where i waited,
alone.
exhausted,
i drifted back into a world of dreams
and remembered the one i had danced with,
the one who had made everyone else
disappear.