You must be well-equipped for days hot, nights cold. Know how to build a fire; keep it contained; avoid fines. Always park your vehicle prepped for escape. Learn where to walk, and how to walk back. Once you reach a nice spot, make yourself part of the landscape. Rest in some shade, or in a stream. Wait 'til animals come. We scamper over boulders naked, unafraid—bathe in cool pools within the rocks. At times we have sex: sand becomes fecund with generative possibility. Up in Pioneertown movie stars play fiddles, poets caress their mics, and snow falls on the landscape twice a year. Swap meet at the drive-in blooms with tools and blouses; down at Cozy Corner there's the best ham steak in the state. Little grey squirrel appears atop some lumber, sees me as a refrigerator, starts to nose around. He scampers up a leg of our redwood picnic table, finds my yellow bowl—lifts a few fragments of homemade granola to his mouth. Then, across the sand, a big black tarantula strides intently forward: eight-legged determined. Lizards. Snakes. Tortoise. Coyotes. Don't go digging up scorpions! Brush it off and jump when one falls from an overhead branch.
Good to hear from you, silent. And thank you, Jay, for the Feature! Now at 75 my verse style seems to be changing a bit, by which I mean my emotions about life and love have subsided. I now appear to be content drawing a word-picture of that which is important to me, and allowing my audience to determine for themselves what the "meaning" or emotional subtext of the piece might be. I've been visiting the Mojave Desert since boyhood, and when Dad passed away, Barbara and I inherited the undeveloped property he purchased well over 60 years ago. Like me, Barbara is a beach & desert person ... something which has helped us stay together for 42 years. The place will soon go to our son the architect: he is bringing his young family out here often enough that we may build a small house on the place ... provided we can scratch up enough dough to do it! After all these decades I've finally grown weary of the camper shell, which leaks when it rains. Me at the fire pit last weekend when I started this poem ... completed yesterday back home on the coast.
~ a surfer in the desert with a cup of tea & Barbara behind the lens that is indeed p0etry a warm smile silent lotus `
Hello Michael — Happy Holidays to you and yours! Here's the Wind Turbine we used to fly out on the property:
Cool pic Lance! I looked at it for a long time, the bricks, wood, chairs, the tea...made me want to know the surroundings. Love the squirrel part- Little grey squirrel appears atop some lumber, sees me as a refrigerator, starts to nose around. He scampers up a leg of our redwood picnic table, finds my yellow bowl—lifts a few fragments of homemade granola to his mouth
