Taos Summer

The dead fly on the windowsill
next to a magpie feather
reminds me to be humble.
On a bed shaped like Taos summer,
all rounded edges and sage,
I daydream in adobe. Cottonwoods
have abandoned me. Yesterday
they chattered through the night
but this morning wind moved
and left only the crows.
A spider drops from nowhere
and lands near my leg. I don’t know
whether to run for the mountains
or enter her silent web. I allow her sticky,
silken strands to bind me to the physical
while singing bowls ring out
the sounds of emptiness. It’s always
a question of balance. Do I leave
behind the poetry of my body,
its litany of suffering and bliss,
and journey to the Blue Lake
of my dreams?  Or do I stay and dance
with spiders with only a glimpse
of filtered light through quaking
aspen? The dead fly speaks to me
of impermanence.