I have tried to paint this beautifully
in swirling pastels of childhood
like Vaseline over a camera lens
hazes of slow-motion imagery
if it’s naive to believe in changing the world
then I am still a fool
a child’s helpless grasp on hope
in a woman’s intuition

Colors dance across frosty ground
Golden sunlight reaching far corners
Dusty shadows filling unnseen crevises
Painting the land with magic and wonder

Heat becomes a god faster than
anything else – agave creeps up, bursting
like a yolk cradled under the tongue.

Walk as far as you can and get nowhere.
Scales thrash; sand unwinds lazily.

It seemed clear at the close of a lengthy conversation,
In the cool heat of late Spring.
We have long mourned,
The colonial appropriation of the ancient East.