The desert codex is best read at night –
by starlight you see more and farther,
follow your heart’s compass, what might
be shed, as you dream your way home – Atacama,
Kalahari, Sahara, white
sand, yellow stone, constellations
of cacti and succulents, bobcat
and coyote – our ancestral navigations.
Listen. Your body’s every cell
senses darkness opening the pores scattered
on leaf and stem, hears the suck of breath. Feel
the spectre of water etch your face, play
out the breath of your days – that vast galaxy.
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
From: Reading the Flowers, Arc, 2016