For the chamisa
I can barely step
without breaking.
It is dry. And then it is soft.
So soft. And the waves come rolling in. Like clouds
pummeling through time
from 135 million years
ago. Gravity is
the story bigger than me.
And then there is sky.
And it is blue like water
and my hands are red like blood.
Ghost waves crash arroyo prayers into my knees.
And then there is a crack.
time teases.
Calcite lines. Needle fish dreams on stones
that know things and
call me home.
I know now why 'to re-member'
is to put pieces back together.
Yet I continue to break like clay
in hand wet cold with snow.
135-million-years-time descended.
Just like that.
As if it were a dreaming caterpillar and
my pelvis an
open invitation for wings.
Words turn to blood.
and yellow me from the inside out.
Fossilized coral, the
one-month-left-till-spring chamisa stalks
and I taste kelp.
I don't understand
the violence of sky
passing shadows on the sage.
or the stillness of between wind
someone said that knowing too much
will cause a person to feel old too
soon.
I know why the tree bears fruit
why I have to taste it on my lips
and why falling
matters
I made this round globe of mud
wet from tears.
I put it here and I said
Apple.
Body.
Earth.
And then it said nothing.
so I smeared on my face
these paprika red hands.
And the magpie laughed.
And the bone shard taught me
the eternity of death
and the shell of an ancient sea
said nothing more than circles within circles of time
carving tears out of stone.
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