The rock does not cling to the river, 
but yields
to snowmelt.

Rain surges to fill the emptiness:
the hollowed out space
of our tracks—
the bowl of the earth
where we slept,
the bed of our pitched tent.

Where would we be
if we didn’t keep losing ourselves—

to each other,
to the days we left behind?

Everything that escapes our grasp—
the fish in the river,
the breath we exhale—

returns, I’m told.

Even the sea returns to shore
continuously,
like the swing of the pendulum,
as she licks her wounds.

Will we recognize the fog 
as last year’s puddle
as transpired sweat
as a little ghost of ourselves?

Remember how the clouds
gave themselves up.

Then do likewise

Like Alice, I have been falling
and my feet still haven’t touched ground.
Like a golden ball flung toward the horizon
I fall without a sound.
See me shapeshift into ribbons
with arms wide as the sun.

Deep inside the earth’s core,
magma buckles and mountains peak.
Give me a lever long enough, wrote Archimedes,
and I could move heaven and earth.

See how the universe expands into the darkness,
carrying with it light beyond the Milky Way?

As we drive west across the Continental Divide,
neither smoke of wildfires nor soot of car exhaust
can block the muted rose of the sun’s rays, 
last hurrah before nightfall. Oh the shadows
are always with us as they seek to block the light,
yet ribbons of pink and peach persist,
lingering on the horizon.

Like abalone or mother of pearl,
we are both castaways—
the sun’s ray on cold rock of earth—
the marine shell stranded on distant shore,
deep indigo of the ocean
now shipwrecked on the sandy beach,
muted colors of pink and peach unfurled
in the contours of the abalone shell:
a distant mirror of the sun.

Along the rain-soaked trail 
next to the wild strawberries,

I balance my backpack 
to reach for tasty red fruit, 

each crimson berry 
small as a thimble. 

The act of foraging,
a balancing act:

Next to me: 
fresh bear tracks.

I don’t know how to distinguish flowers 
by their sweetness 
save by following the bee. 
In a field overflowing 
with flowers, the Indian paintbrush 
grows in shades of scarlet, purple, 
pink, and cream, and I follow 
the bee to the sweet spot: 
the cream-tipped stalks, 
and where the bee sucks, 
there suck I.

In the tent, chaotic dreams emerge,
like pikas darting from their den.
Was that an airplane flying overhead,
or traffic? I hear a crash. “He’s dead,”
someone cries. Car doors slam. 
Feet scurry down the slope 
from the isolated highway. 

Flashlights shine, illuminating the walls of the tent. 
“Wake up! Wake up!” the voices cry. 
“Can we borrow your phone? 
We need to report an accident.” 
I know we’ve left phones behind in a locked car.
No service here in Colorado’s San Juan Wilderness,
and the nearest road 
is more than 8 miles
from our tent site.

In my dream, I ask my husband
for his phone. I shake his arm.
His eyes open, and I ask:
“Are you okay? 
Did you hear anything? 
See anyone?”

Roused from my dream, awakened from our sleep,
we shed sleeping bags, like cocoons.
We unzip the tent, then step out.
Stars shimmer across the meadow-—
Second Meadow—-as it arches its sinuous back
for two miles alongside Elk Creek Trail.
The stars are luminous and thick
as fireflies from my childhood.

Soon, it’s back to the tent.
We zip closed the screen behind us,
but the moon’s reflected light 
penetrates the opaque fabric
of our tent, thin sail hoisted on a meadow,
like shining from shook foil.

I knew a lady who sat outside
a mut hut concession, opposite 
a marsh where breezes blew 
palm fragrance in her face, 
to wait for alms. She leaned 
against a neem shade tree 
whose roots exhausted soil. 
I think she kept a garden of her own, 
although her fingers may have been 
misshaped for tilling earth. 
At any rate, she needed change 
for pharmacy antibiotics; 
passing on my way to church, 
I’d drop coins into her hands.

I remember Sunday mornings 
spent in a baobab’s shade, 
clapping and signing of converts, 
a young man telling gospel, 
but most of all, a leper-lady 
whose fingers curled with leprosy 
like soft peeled bark. Her 
fingers could not feel my hand 
or anything that came their way. 
I wish I had the healing gift. 
All I could do was spare pennies 
for those outstretched hands, 
roses where no thorns are.

After 15 months’ hibernation, the tents 
put up sail again—quietly at first. Then, 
with weekend’s arrival, wayfarers’ feet 
stir up dust on the disused path. 

Chromatic colors of sneakers, strollers, 
scarves, and baseball caps circulate
around flea market stalls. Even chihuahuas 
appear, resting in the arms of their humans, 
and a young child balances a piglet 
in his arms as he examines handmade beaded jewelry. 

We fist bump. We shake hands. And the conversation 
is all: “You made it! You’re here!”
The smell of roast mutton and roast corn 
wafts between stalls selling acrylic paintings, 
gospel CDs, silver, turquoise, herbal remedies,
flour sack aprons, T-shirts, mugs, fossils, rocks.

At one stall a woman displays a loom 
with her half-finished rug, reminding us, 
perhaps, that the work is done, yet undone.
A stack of baby quilts is testament, not only
to long hours at home under lockdown, 
but testament to hope.

At the Gallup Flea Market, the old blends seamlessly with the new: 
the handwashing station, the newly built stage for country bands. 
I buy baby quilts for two friends and leave before the dance, 
but by day’s end, I scroll through photos of couples, dancing, 
their eyes disclosing hope, the crinkles of their eyes, smiling.

The blue heron lives a solitary life, 
or so it seems, perched on shore,
peering at its reflection, 
like a chess piece pondering checkmate. 

Then, in one swift
movement, swoops, lifts, 
and wings
toward the wood, 
whose silence 
is pierced 
only by the cry 
of hungry beaks.

The weather changes 
by the hour.

The wind changes 
by the minute.

But my heart is Rock—

pierced, split, and cracked

only by the sprouting Seed
planted by your Hand.