a desert wind

I.

The gorge winds say blow

and we say where. Where

will our selves come from

and where will they return.

II.

There are days in the canyon when the wind and the sun

switch places. Places where the wind tells us the time

to bring in the tents and the wash and the fragile first leaves

of the seedlings. A sudden brisk clarity in the abstract hours

of the afternoon, when we are made to know the stakes

and the pins and the roots won’t hold.

III.

Around fragrant fires of piñon and mesquite, stories

of the hoodoo are told and retold. Retellings mimicking

the mutability of water and the slaps of sand shaping

our place. We place our breath alongside the wind, hoping

to weather the communal imperative to stand and

to withstand.

IV.

Anything of importance that has ever happened

to us has happened along the steep scree slopes

of the Sangre de Cristo range, in this wind

that licks the snows from the valley floors

and bolsters us upright at the edge as we

lean into the horizon. The horizon emptied

of all other sound. Sound other than wind.

V.

The wind says blow

and we say how much. How much

of us will be buried, and how much

of us will be lifted away.

(first published in The shallot, spring 2025)