It had been years since I had seen it,
discovered on one of my first explorations,
my short walking forays into nature’s desert lair,
of this not-so-barren land. Starting at the tiny rural rental,
where we had waited for a vacant mining house for 3 months,
a short scramble down the hill, across the old graveled road,
follow the wash to the secured, wobbly barbed-wire fence
protecting the eerily echoing under-compartments
of the long bridge, from cattle passagings,
through my pick of several concrete
rectangles, cool and creepily lit,
stumbling over monsoon
rubble, working my
way, towards
the light.

It was freedom and liberty, of a kind,
traversed with joyful caution, various sorts
of animal tracks caused trepidations, a wondering,
imagination created danger. I was enthralled, mesmerized,
I was in the Wild, no human occupied land seen around me,
no visuals to comfort me, the wash led me forwards,
an easy path, strewn with rocks of unknown origin.
Fascinating, and there, sandy soil depressing
and hindering my progress, undaunted,
I continue. Soaring blue skies overlap
mornings heat, trickles of sweat
dewdrop my form, trekking
inward, towards my relief,
I espy a wispy funnel,
drawing me

sideways, showing different aspects
of aridness. My water bottle sweating and wet,
I follow this new path, skirting scratching thorns,
delving into wildflowers chosen path, the rebirth of their
times, trickles of viney water, nourishing a few new, scraggly
replicas of floral lives, dusty olives and greeny
browns, woven into cacti’s reaching spines.
And I see novelties appear, roughish
looking crystals, abnormally
shaped, creating curvatures
in quartz-hard exteriors,
lapses in perfect lines,
raggedness pervades
and straight angles
are void.

I stand, amazed, in my awarenesses,
seeking the reason behind the strangeness.
Decomposition, before its time, I conclude, a
metamorphosis, undefined by alignment of yardsticks
egotistical human-framed mime, negating rigidness of mind,
showing all properties of Time, and regulated by Life
and its forever renewing mysteries, sublimed into
nuances of rhyme, runnels of the divine medium
of combined experiences, shrived of lessening,
gaining apocalyptic reasoning into
humanistic leavening as I reach
my hand to touch and gather
the twisted gifts of my
planet, unlimited by
expectations of

a new-birthed cry
of Being.

Erin Elizabeth Kelly-Moen
© Copyright 4/10/03