We drove south all day,
more than 200 miles
into the Chihuahuan desert.
The sun warmed our car
like a solar oven.
Yet near Las Cruces,
the Organ Mountains rose
varnished with snow.

Downfeathers of snow
cloaked the waxy leaves
of creosote bushes.

The Yucca plant
stood at attention
like a comical crane.
Lanky stalks shed snow,
but sword-shaped leaves
at the base of the Yucca
fanned out
and collected snow,
like white fruit falling
into a basket.

Once in Las Cruces, our car
navigated clear roads.
At a red light
the car idled.
Opposite the car,
a snowman
seated on a city bench
stared blankly at us
with coal black
impenetrable eyes.

Trees resonate
in the dulcimer’s
wood frame
when your fingers
pluck the strings.
Once you finish
the song, I take
the dulcimer
from your lap.
Though silent now,
its wooden body
vibrates in my hands,
like forest trees
that sway in wind.

As I set the dulcimer
to rest on the floor,
I think of the infant
who has finished
his crying. Still,
the infant’s chest
rises and falls
with his breath.

After nursing,
lips still suck
the air. Cradled
against mother’s breast,
the infant
relaxes to the rhythm
of the heartbeat
in her chest.

For each living thing
thirsts, hungers and rushes
toward that great ocean
of love
that cradled us
even before our birth.

You greet me
like a kitten
rubbing its throat
against my ankles:

Tumbleweed.

Afterward,
they said:
Everything
happens
for a reason.
But the bare tree
that whistles
when the wind blows
is still asking:

Why?

In the morning
even the wind chime,
displayed haphazardly
from the wash line,
reflected light:
the fork tines,
little tongues
of fire.

Then, as the moon
changed color,
from red coal
to black ember,
the light
on the wind chime
dimmed
before going out.

I tried to shake off the storm clouds that had been following me.
It was into the woods, like Thoreau, but there was no cabin,
only our packs and a tent.

As I stepped into the creek, still waters pooled at my ankles,
then tugged at my feet before flowing downhill. Spring’s raging
snowmelt had already moved on, and August thundershowers
were yet to come. We pitched our tent alongside the stream
to hear the water’s melodic song striking the rounded rocks.

Gravity was the great engineer of the song,
pulling all downward, home to a sea
I can barely imagine now, apart from the vastness of clouds.

She weaves
a tapestry of leaves.
The veins and ribs
reworked annually.

As a leaf lurches
and takes flight,
light shines
through the leaf’s
puckered skin.

The loom is a handspan
in its breadth.
The leaf’s golden face,
a whisper of hope.

A child’s backyard pool
turned stock pond.
Her curved blue lip
chipped around the rim.
Between the train track and I-40,
her electric blue stuns.
Even the sky
pales in comparison.

Two hours late, as usual. Passengers detrain for a delayed smoke break.
As I stand to board the train, I catch a glimpse of the tattooed lady,

her forearms scrolled like black lace cuffs. Seated, I notice
the tattoos on her forearms match the black of her tank

top. Black roots, and then a mane of red hair cascades over her shoulders, crimson as the sleeves of the jacket whose crisscrossed arms

wrap around her hips.

We are all piece of one cloth—
all one, like the blanket of sky,
or the atmosphere above us,
which cradles us,
but has neither starting point
nor endpoint.

Under this cloth
stretched taut overhead,
where patches are threadbare
and disheveled:

that’s where the light
breaks through.