Poetry

MOTHER CACTUS
Desert storms engulf fields of Mother Cactus

She tastes dirt, all piled in her crags,

Slipped nice and carefully into her pockets

She’s wet with sand,

Bristles drenched of rock,

Water useless

Mother Cactus will take what she gets,

Will stomach a hundred droughts;

She will feast on sand and dry air

Desert storms engulf her, her children, and the children that won’t ever bloom

They will never bear midnight flowers: white, pink, red, yellow urchins kissing the dry black starlit sky.

Mother Cactus might never bloom again

But she will feast on the dusty earth;

She will welcome the Dust Bowl

She will sit as Queen of the Desert amidst the cracking ground

Mother Cactus devours the dead earth;

She will have it all.

4/8/16

DEAREST CLARISSE

I changed my mind, Dearest Clarisse. I had said I wanted to finish my life and be done with it. But I’ve tasted the grapes from down in the valley—and I have sat at the vista near the waterfall at sunset. I have finally kissed your red lips.

So now I want to abide forever—live as me or as anyone forever.

Like the lichen transforms into rusted iron shovels, and how the leaves rot into dust and mud—I want to be, too. Will you teach me how? Will you, so kind and graceful you are,  Dear Clarisse—reveal how to never crumble desperately, some singling misery? I don’t want to die, for it seems a petty lie now. And, as you know, I do hate most dishonesties.

Oh, Clarisse!—won’t you teach me how to prepare for infinity, really? Won’t you erase my silly mind of its silly rhymes of this and that and the rubble of regrettable histories?

Beyond me, oh please, Dearest Clarisse, remind me of what I am.

10/24/15