David Hinton
Desert
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Morning light
comes. I
gaze into planetary
shadow deep as
blindness, and morning
light gradually
comes, elemental
forms too: desert,
mountain,
sky. Morning
light comes
and sight precisely
as it did
through its long
slow
beginnings, opening
this world
inside us: planetary
desert, mountain,
sky when
there were
no words, no
words for
any of this.
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It’s the least
possible hope: food, water,
shelter. Human
history begins
there, and I
never leave
those beginnings
really, wander at home
there, touching
the possibilities of
less.
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I wake
somewhere deep
inside the blazing
cascade of star
generations. It’s early
spring, morning
air cool, sun
warm. I linger out
breakfast, walk, mirror
sky. The usual
things. Life seems
so simple
sometimes. Who’d suspect
this is how it
happens, how that
cascade of fire
rips day
by day through
me, licking
its wounds?
Days go on
like this. Sky-parched
grass and desert
sky. Humming-
bird. Mesquite seed-
fluff tight in its
cracked sun-
scoured packet
spills out
on the wind. Some-
times, I
try to remember
that distinction
between
what I
am and whatever
occurs next.
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Traveling today I
found a river
somewhere inside
me, wondered
how far it
wanders there
and how much
sky it
mirrors. All day
long, wind and desert
light, I
followed that river’s
distances, shedding
histories,
histories, until I was
nothing but
river. Nearing
mountains, I grew
cold with snow-
melt and evening
wolves drank from my
currents, tasting
the clarity of water
rinsing through every
cell alive, always
changing, always its own
transparent self.
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Yellow sky-
parched grasses
and sky. The less
this desert
is, the more I
want to live
my life
over again. Ideas
confuse me. They
leave so
much out.