Christmas, High Desert, 2010

Needing the purity of snow, not a myth from the East
the taste of each falling drop opens another country
as breath
as I walk

Canyons awning in beauty and the presence of your touch
not yet a memory enveloping space between us

This feel of frontier so many have climbed
to be reborn and climbed the pinnacle to escape
sane, well-laid lives, the ordeal of darkness
the planned moons too much with us

The wild, unbidden plains with wind sweeping
the plateaus and the coyote calls in short equatorial night
offer solace in the night of our stars.

We seek long journeys.
Not a sleep of false paradise--

lush, though, this view.