Waking

When death comes close

But keeps on walking

I want to remember 

But forget again

That time is running out

There will always be too little time

to wake up

So I imagine a better place

With an order of my own making

To hide from a world

Over which I have no control

What is not there

Seems so solid so

Enduring

If death lingers in the

Doorway
Watching

I sometimes

Take out the backpack of my spiritual

Assignments and dutifully 

Resume my homework

Seconds tick by

Like wise men bringing gifts

Each brighter than the last

A puzzle piece

Of glory

Pinned to its chest.

I am relieved

And reminded that 

I have little time to wake

Up

Have little time to

Find
Out
Who I really am

To plumb how dislikes

Determine my days

To shine a light on the

Ephemera

That keep me from

The white hot wire

Of knowing

With the comfort 

Of my imagined worlds

Stripped away

 

I wake slowly

So that when death comes

Knocking

he will be as welcome as

The rest.

Sonoran Baptism

Dear Friends in Other Places

We are still crispy dry 
ripe and ready to explode 
in flame
at the first dry lightning 
or careless butt

Even the Gila River
normally raftable
north of us
is just pools 
and river rock

But we keep going
pretending water will last forever

We found a creek last weekend 
just off the shore of a sky island
a forgotten defile
home of trogon
source of time
and temporality
and we slept on its spring-fed banks

Morning 
found us freezing 
naked
in its last deep pool 
beneath a mossy
waterfall

I want to play hot blues
and sing songs
of redemption
blood reunion
in a dancing mass
for that creosote-soaked
waft just now
soft as a cat's paw
poking at my cheek 

They will come
it said 
those belly dumpers
of hail and sweet rain  
those barbed and twisted
skewers of light
ionized violence

After staying up all night 
watching shooting stars
and listening to fiddle music
I woke to a promise
of cloud
a bass note
a distant concussion
the rushing and imminent
baptism  
teasing
not yet