Joshua Tree

Floating by a mountain and I'm looking
out a pressurized window, and we landed
in the desert where there is a lack
of water and the men are heavy-handed.

But the air is lighter than a skull,
it's 90 and we drove into a canyon
full of palm trees, our survival skills
in question and I'm climbing with abandon.

Then we're headed for a bungalow,
and spend the night. The hours that I stare
into the fire. Live in a milieu
of words, the elemental is a rare

occasion. In the afternoon we're hiking
in the desert where the rock formations
lurk. Eroded land is to my liking,
a rock a heavy load of information

delivered with a quiet dignity
and no right angles. It's original,
the opposite of living in the city
which is leading to a urinal.

There were Henry Moore hallucinations
coming out of the ground, a horizontal
vertigo, it is a situation
on alert and verging on the mental

in the twilight. I could disappear
out here, the desert has a lethal edge,
and how I feel is similar to a fear
of god. A silence from before the language.

The bungalow at night: I took a shower
and I stood out in the desert night,
a drying wind. I'm fragile as a flower
compared to mountains made of rock. The rights

of men are nothing to the planet earth,
there's no justice in its sphere of influence,
but it happens to be my place of birth.
The cacti activate our innocence.

The headlights of a car a mile away
are like a satellite although it's higher,
the desert being kissed by outer space.
Star-nostalgic, so I built a fire,

the holy spirit in the fireplace,
a tongue of flame. I've never been the same
since I saw the desert. A change of pace,
a cholla solo, you don't need a name.

It holds me like a fallen absolute,
a man among magnetic substances.
It helps you focus, and I point and shoot
with a reflex for the distances.