Fever Dream


 The heat gathers slowly here,

not as an assault

but as a presence—

a warm, dry wind moving through creosote and mesquite,

changing the energy like a sentinel

taking its post at the edge of the day.

Morning arrives turquoise,

impossibly clean,

the sky stretched wide above tan sand

and distant mountains softened by light.

The world still feels new to me,

like a fever dream I haven't fully awakened from,

every shape outlined with significance,

every silence carrying weight.

By noon,

the desert has stripped itself bare.

White bones lie bleaching in the sun,

small monuments to surrender.

Nothing is hidden.

Nothing is wasted.

Everything unnecessary burns away.

The heat knows how to do this.

It takes and takes

until only truth remains.

What you do with that truth

is your own destiny.

Sometimes I think of Georgia O'Keeffe—

sepia-toned memories of a woman

living her best life beneath these same skies,

finding cathedrals in stone,

finding eternity in bone and shadow,

finding herself in the distances

most people feared.

I understand it a little now.

Morning meditations

become afternoon prayer.

The sacred land asks for nothing,

yet receives everything.

Holy landscapes unfold in every direction,

their gospel written in dust,

wind,

and light.

I twist my body into yoga poses

while the hours drift past,

the world moving in black and white

like a Fellini film—

strange,

beautiful,

impossibly human.

Everything is romantic and urgent.

Every breath feels borrowed.

Every horizon promises revelation.

The wind rises again,

warm as a hand against my shoulder.

The desert whispers

in a gravelly moan,

a voice older than language,

older than memory.

It tells me that purity is not innocence.

It is what survives the fire.

And beneath the turquoise sky,

among the bones and sand,

with the heat building toward evening,

I almost believe

that becoming and burning

are the same thing.

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