Desert Green

Author’s Note: I just wanted to give a heads up to any close friends that read this blog- this poem is definitely (there’s no way to say this that isn’t embarrassing) erotic, though I hope in a sensitive rather than sleazy way, so please consider if reading any further is gonna make you feel uncomfortable (I totally don’t blame you if it would). 

…

Desert Green

Our little corner of the earth-

You know the place-

The one where I take you, late at night

When you fly into LAX,

And I help you escape the cold chrome of Terminal 5-

And drive you out to the middle of nowhere,

to thank you for enduring the hell of a cross-country flight-

That place, our place

Is robed in springtime green.

-

Have you ever seen the desert in bloom?

-

The buttercup petals of Jerusalem sage, 

Adorning lanky stalks like mink stoles,

A protection from breezes chilled by the coast,

And the lavendars and greys of San Luis sage buds

Sweet and round, like a child’s cheek. 

The chaparral whitethorn perfuming the air 

with soapy lilac and coconut oil

Woody manzanita in her mahogany form

And sprays of bright mustard 

Stretch far beyond the crests of jostling foothills.

-

Oh, how I wish I could share it with you

Some breezy May evening, as the golden sun

Gives a soft corona to all that it touches

And warms the sunscreen on our bare skin

-

This fertile spring makes me yearn

To reveal my winter-soft body to nature’s bounty

A springtime rite, an offering

For some nature goddess to imbue me

With her magnetic charm

-

Come forward, young man,

Springtime buck,

And tell me if I am not 

A goddess as ancient as these hills

When I am robed in the scrubland’s bounty,

Crowned in the deep indigo of cornflower,

The coral buckwheat of my lips

The sweet honey 

Of little sand bees.

Tell me, are you not as strong and lively

As the deer leaping up the loose dirt 

of the Pacific Crest cliffsides,

Flexing their sinewy calves 

Hurtling into the bronze of the falling sun?

-

Your family are from the snow-peaked mountains 

Where Maronite hermits hunkered down.

And I was named for pine-crested peaks, as dramatic and scraping

As the granite face of Mt. Whitney, rising above the I-395.

Is this not where we belong?

What’s in blood, in a namesake, in DNA, in our hearts? 

Perhaps we simply belong in each other’s arms-

You said we could make any place romantic,

And I loved you for it. 

-

Fall to me, then,

Make me feel more alive

Than everything that pushes up from the ground,

That shrugs off the yoke this metallic dirt, iron and copper abound,

And boldly assets 

“I am here!”

-

Pass between me like a stream,

Winding and undulating in its course

Oh, rush into me,

Roaring like bobcats in the packed dirt

Calling like bluejays in skeletal Jeffrey pine

Hold fast to me, with adoring hands

Neither of us taking, but sharing

And magnifying in each other 

The cries of red-tailed, soaring hawks.

The heights of condors that see it all.

-

Make me feel like the first woman 

To ever revel on a perfumed May night

To ever clothe herself in nothing but what the hills offer

And give her loving touch to first man.

-

Birth and rebirth

Year after year

Millennia after millennia

The promise of religion 

That life will be sustained 

Inanna rose from the dead,

And Jesus, too

And Persephone calls forth the meadow blooms

And shamans danced and sang until the felt the frenzy

Of every nature spirit that ever touched earth 

Purge the sleep from their souls.

-

And again, the land is lush

And vibrant

And soaked in seasonal streams, sunshine, and pollen

Dripping with honey and dew

The damp earth yielding to touch,

Taking in these gifts

And shuddering forth wildgrass and brush.

What can be more erotic 

Than feeling truly alive? 

Than to see life thriving all around you? 

What can be more erotic

Than to be a living, feeling creature?