Like Snow in the Desert

Like Snow in the Desert

(“May the Lord be praised! He has given rest to His people…” 1 Kings 8:56a)

Places arise from consciousness, buried below
beliefs and farmland. Who hears the seeds shouting?
Who cuts down trees with birds in their limbs?
Healing arrives on unexpected days like
snow in the desert, like the pastels the peek through
the side hills and mesas.
I can’t explain it,
but silence is my medicine,
slow is the pace of my reanimation.
In the hollows of our minds there are snapshots
reminiscent of times we laughed without reserve.
The canyons opened on either end to rivers so
lazy
they barely spoke a thing.
If I was young again I would
take more naps in the sun.
I would unwind the yards of
insistent lanyards that kept me painfully
straining to submit to the instructions
left behind by my captors.
After so many miles there are curio shops
with silver and turquoise awaiting my slow meanders
between aisles of beadwork and sage.
After so many years there are drum songs I wish
I could hear one more time again. There are
friends
whose smile (even those who think I’ve
lost my way) would light my soul like
campfires that smell of mesquite. We
would tell our stories without critique,
laugh or cry, we would walk the winding way
with songs still incomplete. And our faces
in the fiery glow
would tell us everything we ever needed to know.