Pull Me Into Your Slough
Pull me into your slough.
I can take it.
I’ve learned to tread the water.
I know the routes.
I can’t lead you out
But I can sit beside you a while
And visit.
And the Stars Wrap Around Me
Eons pass
And the stars wrap around me.
I am born under Capricorn
I grow up under Orion
In the crisp country night
I see black and white.
Under the bright fluorescents of education
I learn what color means.
I get a job
In a room with high speckled ceilings.
I struggle smally.
I see the moon in the mornings
And dappled winter sunsets.
I grow old
Joints from creaks to cries
Complaints from whispers to shouts
My hands grasping at light-pierced blankets
I face my own mortality.
And the stars wrap around me.
Arizona Photos
These are in no particular order. I started to sort them and got walleyed. It’s more interesting out of order anyway. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.
There was always a highway just over the edge of an incredible view. Or is it the other way around?
It rained the day we went to the painted desert. My sister was sad the sun wasn’t there to make things glow, but I was happy to see all the blues highlighted! We argued about this a lot. I think I was trying to talk her into being happy despite the rain but I just ended up being unreasonably combative.
Everything orange in the photo below is petrified wood. Or great big turds. See what you want.
Antelope Canyon X was surreal.
Trains, everywhere. Bringing food in from places that are actually able to make food.
This was my rock stack. See the useful skills I have accumulated in my varied life. Sandstone is hard to stack, because every time you put pressure on it it starts to crumble away.
My niece took the below picture of the inside of a wishing well/fountain. It was too pretty not to include.
Below is Meteor Crater. Ten guesses what caused it.
An old abandoned zoo. Weird derelict Route 66 stuff was everywhere. At first it depressed me but by the end of the trip I was starting to like it, despite myself.
Wanna feel fat? Take a short, moderate hike down into the Grand Canyon. Watch your family and friends outpace you. Watch them wait lovingly and politely for you to catch up at the top. Swear to self to be less fat in the future.
I love taking pictures of people taking pictures of things. For some reason it’s just adorable to me, seeing them love the thing and try to capture it. See the way she loves that tree. Isn’t she adorable?
Entrance to the APACHE DEATH CAVE. Very tight squeezes, very ankle-turny. Amazingly, no ghosts! My favorite part was later when I asked my brother-in-law where he got that scratch on top of his bald head and he answered casually, “In the death cave.”
I thought the desert sun was exquisitely bright, turns out I just needed to clean my lens. Heh.
My siblings and I kept quoting Shorty in Indiana Jones, “See? Strong bridge! Strong bridge!”
Well, I expected rocks. Damned if I didn’t get them. You go to a gift shop, guess what they sell? ROCKS. You can also find arrowheads, or fossils, or petrified wood (i.e., rocks).
I expected a few more creatures, and life. Really didn’t get that. My brother-in-law and his son went searching for rattlesnakes, on purpose, everywhere they found brush, at every gas station or scrubby landscape. They. Found. Zero. I actually felt bad for them. Poor kids. No rattlesnakes for them.
When I got back to Missouri, I felt like a soggy mummy. My lips took a full week to heal.
Small Salvations
Some people have been hurt so deeply
They no longer know how to accept love.
They have been repeatedly wounded
Until fear overwhelms them.
Their defenses scar shut.
They can’t bare their hearts to trust again.
Even these can find small salvations.
A lover, a child, a persistent friend
Might break through,
Might prove to them
That love is worth the pain.
That humanity
Has beautiful faces.
That they belong.
That they deserve
All the good things.
Going on a Vacation!
I’m going on a trip to the Grand Canyon! I leave early tomorrow, so just a few hours from now. I’m excited to see the beauty of a real desert. Checking it off the bucket list!
I’ll be gone all next week and maybe the one after that. Please don’t expect me to an amazing, or consistent, or even existent blogger. I will return, with a scalp full of sand and a mind full of ventifact geometry.
Maybe this is a good time to post this one. Not even sure if it counts as a poem, just food for thought.
Running out of time
How much is left
To do what we want
To do what others want
What kind of a bucket list should we have?
Here is a bucket list written by a six-year-old.
– sit in hot tub
– visit grandma and grandpa
– catch frogs
– see a movie with mom
This is how simple life can be.
She has no agenda
No outside influence
On what a bucket list should say.
Her world is small and rich.
No popular tourist destinations
No huge purchases
No revenge
No regrets.
All she wants
Is to spend her time doing what she enjoys
With people she loves.
Sarah D. Silvey 