Desert Dogs
[New Mexico]
In the Black Range
standing stoned on some high up rock,
still, sucking air like a drum--
ba ba ba...ba ba...ba...ba...ba...ba
how the sky fights
to reclaim equilibrium
between it, and me, all things a’round.
Makes sense,
es el Sierra Diablo,
I’m high high up, so there’s less air to share—
but then why does every breath around sound like song?
Deep deep breathes. Empty windy ether
swelling, howling through three colors, again:
green, brown and one-hundred-different-skies. In this
enchanted land
of contention— there is no middle ground.
You know or you don’t, there’s a dog that feeds our lungs—
cut of hard lines
streaming black from the horizon,
playing tricks;
shifting slabs of earth form
it, this wild dog, staring blankly at
a big yellow ball...burning... as it sails
over, over, over
his back—
so black.
She houses this desert space, filled with everything
from me to
the far-off bird nested high up in
a Texaco sign, singing
poo-poo-tweet, poo-tweet, tweet tweet poo-tweet!
between it, and me, all things a’round.
______
I am still on this mountain, called its name
from the people who lived in its cliffs,
had a carnal bowl for every meal, same for death:
I saw one once.
Two dogs in trapped carbon
chasing tails for all time,
like sun and shade sprawled in symmetry
around each certain ring,
what a dance!
I want to hear that song!
When these people died
others laid bowls
to their faces—before, put the hole in the bottom,
in the threshold to infinity (we end empty vessels).
So may my last sounds be that of breaking,
something precious,
like a bird or
the dog who governs this place.