I visited Death Valley in February of 2014 and was lucky enough to see rain and even a small amount of water accumulation on the ground. The result were flowers erupting in small patches all over the barren looking landscape. My father and I spent more than a day driving though, hiking over, taking photos of and staring in marvel at the engulfing desert all around us.
Month: April 2016
Joy becomes us
God looked down at me
With tears in his eyes
The ocean in each drop,
That salt burned
The freshly opened wounds
A hole torn through
My chest ripped open
But his tears did cleanse
And in time passed the pain
After 40 days of death
And 40 nights of birth
Broke the sun
From humble clouds
In the shape of your face
The heavens opened
For but a moment
And I saw all of eternity
A vast plain of peace
As clearly as a reflection
I looked at the future
As vision of grace
And joy became us
Ashes and diamonds
Salvaged from damnation
Ashes turned to diamonds
Your heart shone
A stone, stolen
From the depths of the earth
To the palm of my hand
A maddening brilliance
That lit kingdoms afire
And set hearts into frenzy
Your smile
A constellation
Every tooth sparkling from its own nebula
Cosmic music bursts violently
From a collapsing galaxy
As your laugh wells up from deep time
Your eyes glitter back from tomorrow
A reflection of the stardust of creation
Your lips
As lonely as the moon
With its half crescent smile
Tracing the sky
Behind a crooked orange paintbrush
Up until an infinite wave of space
Engulfs me in the soft pillow
Of your hair,
And the shadows of the sunset
Put me to sleep in your smile
Years of poetry
I woke up a poet
Most days in those years
In the beginning I was a painter
But my colors always ran
When the sun shone I was an athlete
Near water I was a fish
I wanted nothing more
Than to become the air, or the sea
Some days we philosophized
Touching a metaphysical reality
As we imbibed all of our indulgences
But most days, I woke up a poet
Those years were riddled with questions
That came about as I wandered
Down dusty paths
And forgotten alleyways
Questions that played out in my mind
In verse and in rhyme
Small blue flower
A Poetic Voyage 