One day your teacher will turn
his dusty wagon onto the washboard
road at the edge of your acre of land.
He will lift his red and corded arms
like a Joshua tree. He will bless
the barren sand, the fish-hooked thorn
of barrel cactus, the desiccated
pilgrimage of tumbleweed. He
will whistle to the desert wren,
spirit of sage and chaparral.
Offer him your calloused hand.
He is your old friend, returning
with the gift of a needle plucked
from the sun-drenched tip of a prickly
pear. He will lift the barb into
the bleached and broken air. He will sink
it like a shard of stone into your coiled
muscle and twisted bone. And now
the desolation of your decades
will unwind. In the hot wind
you will attend to the groan of God.
You will learn to wail the wail
of your desert time. You will sing
like the rabbit clutched to the breast
of a red-tailed hawk. Your old friend
will smile and nod. He will shimmer
like a mirage in the heat of the open road.
He will disappear, tiny tornadoes
of fire and dust whirling like dervishes,
and you—ecstatic in the pain of his passing.
This poem appears in House of Mirrors and in Where There Was No Pattern
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