A Few More Days of Desert

Childhood is coming back to me in flashes of sun and smells, earth, the texture of leaves. Sometimes I part the boughs of a pine and it's as if I am a small child:the world is enormous and unknown. I could fly through red windows of rock under a lavender sky. The waters are still pure and the dream world is more real than expanses of cracking parking lots. A great Thunderbird burns out of the sky and the machines are powerless. The desert is absolute and pure, cinnamon red and sage green, without boundary and definition. The sun herself sends the power of dream and life into rains, rainbows, bones and blood. The fire and vibrancy, the hardship and sharpness of this land draws me like the mouth of the serpent. The soft, mossy beauty of the Northwest has healed me and still holds its healing, but it is the desert that stokes fire in me, creation.

Elk bone moon, I'll return before the next summer solstice. For now, winter will wrap me in moss and mist and the crisp death cold of high desert December will wait.