It may be in the sky, in sand, in dream you’ll find your Self.
For some, the search may never end. Don’t give up! Trust yourself!
Whatever you do, don’t sell your soul in discovery.
There will be those who’ll claim you, as if you are some “whore” self.
I rescue them at times from the back of the store—
cellophaned oranges and apples
packaged good-side-up.
I imagine them as little brains
thinking of the days when they were on the tree
and full of promise.
Horse girls have money,
a former student tells me with assurance
the same day I read about the flies.
He is stroking the mustang I adopted for $25
from the U.S. government five years ago,
and I think with sudden shock, He means me.
She took me home—or what I thought was home,
but was in fact a hell she made for us.
We left The Sound of Music with the fuss
that I was making, working out my poem
in sobs. She asked me what was wrong.
A mantra sets in with just one word.
A dream can end with just one word.
A human’s lifetime of asking questions
—why?—will begin with just one word.
I’m spending the week at a cabin on the Klamath River in Northern California, where a summer storm surprised us on Monday. It’s beautiful here, but dry thunder—and dry lightning—are very ominous in this rugged, mountainous region prone to wildfires. The weather seemed to echo my sense of dread from the political news.