clove, coconut, sesame oil, nigella, black cumin seed, turmeric, fennel

gracious.

happy birthday

The Mountains in the Desert

The Mountains in the Desert

The mountains blue now
at the back of my head,
such geography of self and soul
brought to such limit of sight,

I cannot relieve it
nor leave it, my mind locked
in seeing it
as the light fades.

Tonight let me go
at last out of whatever
mind I thought to have,
and all the habits of it.

Robert Creeley

"The days of spring went on, flowers ablaze in the mountains, the skies cloudless and exalting, the foothills so full of wild mustard that at times it felt as if they were walking through avenues of light." (Abandon, Pico Iyer, 239)

Night photo

Brine

1.

we are Myriad;

old lives as cobblestones;

(bared-teeth), sunk

in Earth.

Our memories;

(scaffold-shapes,

mica-schist):

loom over us,

from Four Sides of Consciousness:

as the embedded thing in mud (green circle),

as the adobe bricks steaming in the rain (brown dust),

as the smoke from the distant storm (red circle),

as the sour yellow smell of wet chamisa rising from the plain (spinning circle).

2.

when I lived in New Mexico, the

adobe houses would cluster together wetly in storms.

the lashes of rain would darken even the red dust,

under the trucks, and

rusted car shells.

3.

Here, powdered-iron and

Creosote

hang heavy in the air,

and like (metallic) wet

steel wool,

Coagulate,

(inside particles of storm wind,

nestled in their own-made nest).

4.

The wet brine of a west Texas afternoon,

Creeps

through my backyard window,

Reading furtively,

unbeknownst (to me),

the chicken stock and lentils

hum quietly on the darkening stove.

ELG

2010