This poem made its way to me today when my husband found it in a pile of papers and said, "Here."
I thought it might find a home on the website, and, possibly, speak to you.
It’s night in the desert-- clear, real but not here.
“Sometimes, you have to come down,” you say.
My dad in 1967: slender, white short-sleeve shirt, pens in the pocket,
black slacks, chunky glasses, curly brown bang swept to the right.
You look into the horizon where the gray meets the black
and walk away from me.
The desert swallows you into its warm darkness.
I lie on the desert floor, and my body stretches out,
flattens, lengthens, expands, becomes the desert floor.
Stars perch on me and in me and glow like Chinese lanterns.
Roots sprout at the base of my spine and spiral down,
pirouetting their white-green tendrils into the rocky soil.
Time weaves and waves, turns over a few times
as if it is sleeping.
A hawk lands on me in the place where my heart would be.
She scratches a little hole and drops in a few feathers and flesh.