Long Placesvoice Poems

Joshua Tree

We went headlong into Joshua Tree,
      the four of us.

Flower maps, Del Taco stops, cigarette butts, and Steel Kettle
      armed us through the hot desert air.

This was a time when my voice was lost, 
      that passionate pointing of your being.
      I worked my way through the weekend like the cursor unguided,
      drifting across the computer screen.

      And this was okay. We find things in the desert.
      Traces of the forgotten, colors blooming from
      endless rock and sand. Friendship and intimacy
      playing like the praying of folded hands, fingers
      of the landscape entwining with the fingers of man.

It all seemed so untouched, we felt,
      as our own lives spilled out of us drip by drip 
      across the fire, seeking new bonds
      and dropping old baggage, sparkling and crackling
      Into dark cool night.

The all-revealing sun in our mornings set sweltering 
      the space between our hairs, above our eyes,
      within our speech, making slick and dizzy 
      our touching as we hiked, hopped,
      climbed, and perched unforgiving surfaces.

Back now, after the drive, the plane, the park-and-ride, and now the office...
      my voice still fills a few feet from my body,
      though now I know it's still with me,
      naked, exposed and wanting as it was
      laid out over the natural scars of the wild desert.
      I heard it's call, I heard my name, 
      and knew all that I was, and am, and will ever be.