an experiment in permaculture poetics

 

 


Five ::

 

a poetic inventory of saguaro national park

 

1.

 

dive right in, sip enchantment

 

begin the green crawl out of earth

 

            blue and red burn in the sky high

 

                        sunset on your head

 

 

even when you dream that

 

your name is

 

                        collections of things made, things grown

 

                        that thirst you’ve never mentioned aloud

 

 

we give the blue of the blue that holds

 

we might be breathing in the room

 

                        but we are extras

 

                        in the middle of another gathering

 

 

get the facts straight. the truth is

 

            to replicate the shape of

 

            some natural order would be

 

                        crossing the border

 

                        of what you were holding

 

 

so much song overlaps

 

its globe a terrarium

 

            that calls out diminished things

 

 

2.

 

drinker of sand, halo of bones

 

            to that rhythm

 

            of the first fall

 

 

i’ve lost this place

 

i try to find you

 

            but nobody moves, only

 

 

a single rhythm against

 

the sign of your thoughts

 

            so far away

 

 

endless movement of the universe

 

 

with flat of foot flush to the ground

 

stand up and speak as one about the heat

 

 

            for the next thing you know

 

            to extend preservation, the eye

 

            suddenly, stems away

 

 

we fall silent, wrapped

 

            in the early morning shadows

 

            soft crunching of sand

 

 

                        a rainstorm disturbs the settled words

 

                        as the sky dropping seeds of light

 

 

3.

 

our blanketed galaxy in a fork of trees

            the dust, the million scratches

            beside the shrunken rivers


to the wide desert sky

                        called out by thunder

                        call and i don’t

                        taste the air with

this land with eyes like tiny planets


landscape is

                        at the margin of

everything she’d seen, but not what she was looking for


the light now casts its certain slant

            almost feathery, almost

            different fields of meaning


sleep at dusk

i believe in reincarnation

the fire was asking as it began

asphalt to ashes


            its center writ large at night

            who knows when it’s enough    


4.

even the stones are talking

            into the thorny wash

            into earth deeply into thought


so, why would you spend your days

caught in a basket of

            bird song eclipsed by jet engines


                        and then feral rain

                        roots to roots to creek turned torrent

                        your sustaining alchemy?


after a lifetime

i’m only a little bit thirsty

most of the alternatives were unsuitable

                        long shots of another day


what do we know

to seek shelter, choose shade

who eats what the rain smells like


survival requires intention

a thousand more fires

                        or as a doorway

we can speak or not speak

      

~~~~~

Spiral Orb is an experiment in juxtaposition, interrelationships, and intertextuality—a cross-pollination. This opening poem composts fragments from each of the pieces in Spiral Orb Five. Standing also as the table of contents, each line is embedded with a hyperlink to its original piece. Once at each piece, you will find links to the other pieces in Spiral Orb Five.

Spiral Orb Five is a special issue on A Poetic Inventory of Saguaro National Park.

For past issues of Spiral Orb: archives

For more on Spiral Orb, see What Is.