Snow on Saguaro

Snow on saguaro. White prickly pear. Ironwoods pose as noble fir. Red room. Sultry voice in black boots. Drinking hot water and lemon at the bar, holding out 'til the smoke threatens the resolve of my recovering cold. Wild horses. Dreams. Has she caught anything yet? That voice. A crater of time. Does that star-dusted scape ever feel desolate? To her? While she sings? Or is it forever full of what happened there, like the pounding heart of another galaxy: immediate, distant, comforting in its insistence. That voice. A crater. Enveloping and austere. Ready to cave with a finger down the spine. Snow melts on saguaros. Ribs. Flesh. Skin glistening in moonlight.

Date with a Rabbi

Last night. Such a lovely evening. Taiji. Rabbi. Girl & guitar, singing on a swing in a downtown artists loft. Salvador. Heart-stopping flamenco. Canopy beds. Child sleeping like a sculpted deity. A camera encases a baby's heart. Portraits of pregnant women. One wears a mask. Dia de los Muertos. SI 11. He pressed into it as the music pressed into me and my spine filled with fluid harmony. Softened at last. Spacious. Like the high-beamed ceiling that held her lilting voice. God is desire with no object. Wonderment from within. Wonder at it all. This I felt. Even with the gritty darkness circling the eyes of the drunken woman dancing. Even beyond the world mirroring back our deepest absorptions and accumulations. Wonder that sees no dark, no light. No centripetal or centrifugal force. No preoccupation with separation or centredness. The night sky when a tear forms from the soaking. What Moses knew and could not say. The kind of speech that transforms law. The consciousness of God itself.