Welcome Sign

Driving through the desert,
I take blurry pictures of cacti,
find faces in clouds,
anticipating red rock formations
and an abrupt change of atmosphere
when we pass that welcome sign
that I can never capture on camera

just beyond the second roundabout
where our lives took a dramatic turn
two years before.

Despite two flights
and a long drive
from a ninety degree Phoenix
with a broken air conditioner,
and growling stomachs,

all we can do
is breathe it all in;
this place, this air,
this energy

this return to sacred ground

where horizontal and vertical
come together
in multi-colored stones

to form a cross.

Beloved

She says, with her head bowed,
the rocks are still red as before,
but crowds form like fire ants
stifling spirits halfway up Bell Rock
and two miles from the river.

She stacked flat stones zig-zag
by the whispering stream
and I saw the light reflect
a glimmer of hope
springing up

and as sun set
upon the vortex of time,

the moon swung
like a dream catcher, woven
and strewn about like stars
overlooking silhouettes
of a thousand broken hearts.

~

Love Letter #26: Missing Sedona

 

I will get back there
stepping over baggage
and red rocks

because a piece of me
was left in the pebbles
washed over by streams
and kindred voices of birds;
their lullabies, weeping

to me,
to mine.

At the very sight of you, Sedona
we ached,
like initials in an oak tree
we had never seen;
never carved into-
a wind wisped through his spirit,
then mine,

whispering secrets, revealing notes
we had heard a thousand times,
but never listened to.

Wings fell over my lashes
and the past went to sleep;
blew away in red dust
and starlight’s shimmer.

I awakened with an army behind me,
the sweet sound of harp strings
between my fingers,
and he, a pan flute,
in a state of melodic harmony
only angels could have orchestrated .

Oh, the skies there are smiling gold
with blue-gray tears calling me back,
loving me with winds of remembrance
haunting me in winter,
leaving me seeking that same air;
yearning from every corridor,
at sunrise and sunset
even my Texas sky full of stars
cannot subdue.

I will see you again, in Summer
touch your hills and harp
with trembling fingers,
take back my pebbles from your stream
and leave you my jeweled love
stacked in rock towers
with trembling fingers.

Until then,
I send you love letters;
poetry in bated breath,
from here

to the other half of my heart.

~

Love Poem #5 (to Sedona)

I fell in love with red rock
and a feeling, last summer
and now, I am homesick;
yearning to plant my feet
upon the -sacred- ground
which awakened my spirit,
contemplate clandestine
thoughts in conversations
with angels. Oh! your sky,
my breathless acceptance
of your tangents, energies;
quiet, but, oh so expressive
essence; the -aura- of you

~

To Sedona, With Love

There is a new night wind-
an awakening
shaking up the skies;

stars falling like sleepy fireflies-

like lightning flickering out
behind tulip- shaped clouds.

When light sprinkles dawn
far from my home
of unsuspecting bluebonnets
and dew cascading
upon meandering willows,

Spring happens.

Bluebells’ skirts
blowing like dandelion fluff
whispering hello to my loving season.

Then, there is you;
you wrap me in the grace of morning,
the mist of mountain air
this scent-drunk traveler high on the view
from there

where red rock steals breath
and tiny stacked temples
play music to a wandering heart.

I crave your peace;
your beckoning trickle of blue-
your teasing desert sand
to dance upon.

I will return to your lavish earth,
your dreamy air

where I left my heart.

~