Wednesday, May 23, 2007

New Poem: Walking in Sabino Canyon



Walking in Sabino Canyon

Does the desert
feel my footsteps?
Do the ancient saguaros
sense my presence
in their silent community?

I walk through gauzy
afternoon heat,
among cholla and ocotillo,
feeling myself a stranger
in a foreign landscape.

Five years, now,
and still nothing feels familiar;
not the red cliffs,
the gentle rattle of a diamondback,
or the absence of crows.

Yet a lone raven
reminds me of the darkness
within, the breathing
shadow always so close,
the murkiness of loss.

The deeper into the canyon
I walk, the less I know
who I was when I began,
and the rocks begin to speak
in words I can almost intuit.

How could I have not heard
the voices before?
Such arrogance, thinking
I control my fate,
when my soul is not my own.


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