Waterborne
Sunday, May 25, 2008
In the desert our water-spoiled senses seem to come to life. Days can go by without a scent of water or clean, moist earth. Shade under a desert tree that’s recently had fill of rain is completely different from that of a building or overhanging stones. The scent of water in the desert is not easily explained without some sort of poetic sense. It’s like breathing life. It is coolness and a refreshing that has a physical impact. Sometimes I feel like I can touch it, maybe even see it, that shimmering sense of wellness in a place that appears dry and dead. I love this in my desert.
I think you, each, are my sense of life in my little desert-mind. That essential water that, though beautiful and wonderful anywhere in the world, is far more in the corners of desolation, distance and endless days. The sky may be filled with dreams, but the life is found here, here at the waystation and shimmering oasis of this one’s visions.
Up, up past the ridge of vision
The line of sight at the bronze edge of the world
Little moments, little words I find to savor
Fountain in this secret grotto
where I come to whisper
Where songs find beginning
in little words and dreams
Waterborne Ivy making these walls so sweet smelling and alive
O the seed that was such tiny hope
worked into the cracks, holding so much together
Alive and green and everywhere so fine
Stream, breathing noise that never ends
the life grown up and around over all these years
Rain that ends all days in soft darkness
wrapped in peace
Bring little moments to my senses
speak of paradise amidst the dust and burn
my little kingdom of dunes and crags,
of sun and wind-swept emptiness.