Last Ditch, Arizona, 7 October 2017

I was never certain whether it was the grim
Tenacity with which this universe enforced
Its every rule or the compulsive tendency
Of nearly every member of my species,
All ourselves products of those same rules,
To fantasize fractures in that unbending
Law that was weirder. Our human world
Reeled with tales about natural law broken,
And to state the obvious, that it never broke,
Risked being pinned down somewhere
On the spectrum running from accusations
Of pig-headedness to executions for heresy.
Every population had its tales of magic
And wonder, magic and wonder being
Always instantiated in some flouting
Of a well-known rule. Humans flew, beasts
Granted wishes, gravity was switched off
As easily as a flashlight, lead turned to gold,
The sun paused in the sky, people returned
From the dead, and other people never died.
I understood the urge but not the conviction.
I wanted to fight the world without requiring
Anything purely miraculous to happen to me.
I found the narrow seam, the shadowy ravine
Where the odds were staggeringly long
Against my wishes and me but not needing
Anything outside of the rules to occur for me
To beat them. And then, in that bent desert
Of twisted trees, I leaned over and fell in.

Narrow Garden, Utah, 6 October 2017

Who was he, really, the one who walked
In the garden in the evening time? I doubted
He was either that particular Jewish man
Or that particular Christian god, or any
Historical particular. He, it, was a rumor,
Old as gardens, or at least as old as gardens
Worth strolling in, which would be to say,
Not particularly old in the scheme of eons,
But a good many human generations
In the making. This rumor whispered
That if you walked alone in the garden
At a certain time of evening or, in some
Traditions, of morning when the dew
Was still on the roses, you could encounter
The stranger you always wanted and feared
And yet live to testify and send the rumor on.
I suspected it was that figure, ungendered,
Faceless, shadowy, but comforting, gently
Talkative enough to draw out your own
Griefs and confessions. The rumor was true
But impossible to confirm because of one
Error in transmission: you didn’t live.

Sand Wash, Snow Canyon, 5 October 2017

Pain and exhaustion had their own ways
Of interpreting a perfect day. They swayed
Together and stumbled, blinking like owls
And gasping like fish, like dancers at the end
Of a contest to find the couple that could
Hold up the longest. You’ve seen the picture.
More than the blue blown-glass sky above
The red cliffs, more than the scalloped
Patterning of sand in place of creek water,
More even than the incessantly pleasant,
Soft chatter of the little gray birds, they saw
The way the jogger stumbled, they heard
The way the fallen child bawled on the trail.
The world was perfect, admitted exhaustion
To pain, perfect without either of them,
But it was sarcasm born of irritation,
Their grandchild, if you like, that admission.
Pain replied that it was always when worst
And least able to take action that one most
Wanted to leave. The sun was ideally bright,
Just the angle to warm a chair set in sand
Without scorching the skin, and the air
Occupied itself with the small breezes
That ancient poets so loved to name,
And one could have, should have said
That these sweetnesses were mercies
Counterbalancing the heavy duo, but there
Could be no counterbalancing once, or while
Pain and exhaustion slunk in and sunk in.

Afterlife, Utah, 4 October 2017

Close to official midnight, shoulder
Too painful to lift an arm, ankle tweaked,
Internal organs lost in parley over who
Should surrender how much and which,
Body surrendered but sneakily kept on
Breathing, as if another morning woken
To and greeted were less than nothing,
Were simultaneously superior to the walk
Of the drunkard exaggerating everything,
And the emptiness of the certain
Who will brook no exceptions, by god,
The emptiness who will not, however, end
As you would wish your failure to end.

Aspens, Utah, 3 October 2017

Up in the high country, they were near
Or already past peak gold bouquets.
Nothing ever looked more suited
To an unyieldingly cloudless blue sky
Than vast aspen stands, gold and trembling.
I said, they have nothing to say. I said
It a thousand times, a hundred ways,
And still they had nothing to say.
Dumbfounded, I watched their shimmy,
Scatter, and sway. What if it was only me,
Invasive monkey, self-absorbed trickster,
Who had nothing really to say? They were
Busy, after all, trying to salvage the day.
Frost was right. It's reckless I must go away.

Courtyard, Zion, 2 October 2017

Denial grew as its excuses dwindled. A body
Staring disastrophe in the snake eyes, fangs
Already sunk up to their gums in its neck,
Thought, well, what if someone came along
And unhooked this snake from my veins,
I wonder what that would feel like. How
Should I go about stanching the blood, what
Should I do with my life once I'm healed?
All the while the fangs injected poison
And the eyes didn't blink. Every half instant
Inching toward oblivion was spent spinning
Increasingly elaborate and implausible
Futures to live after this crisis had passed.
A body could spot a small bird in the mouth
Of a rattler vanishing across the courtyard,
Could glimpse the beak still opened wide
And think, I shall compose a poem about
That poor bird, and nature, and beauty,
And the doors of perception, and eternity,
And eternal return, or at least arrange words
And images redolent of all such deep things,
Without thinking, why can't I shut my beak?

Doppelgänger, Utah, 1 October 2017

He didn't, in fact, look a bit like me, unless
You were the sort for whom all white men
Of a certain age looked like twins. Not tall
But taller, not young, but younger looking.
Not bearded at all but with the shadow
Of a beard as heavy as my own had been
Weighing down his boyish phiz. Not broken
But presumably breakable, my mirror image,
Situs inversus, his paws on my love, his eyes
Crinkled with the wry amusement of doubt,
Not as to his own entitlement but to his own
Ability to make good on what he'd been
Given, when all he'd really been given was
The opportunity to deliver me, my fetch,
Elongated echo cast at twilight, the last
Thing I would want and the first that might
Help me help me deliver me.