Burning Man
3.
When the head-throb’s gone I can
hear a rumbling under the AC that’s
all there is suspending us at seventy.
Just some silence would drop us
to the rushing pavement the driver’s
contempt seems absolute and by
no means am I true enough
to be braving the wakened world
again peering out of my sockets
like a fugitive through a slot. Not so
long ago I was a boy who’d love
a thistle weed if it had a miller on it.
The storm’s green light and far-off
flashes have reached the oaks
and pump jacks you can feel
the pressure dropping and it isn’t
so much that you understand
what’s coming as that you’ve already
known it to strip man and tree
to their skin and leave them standing….
Consulting a Mayan Calendar
When I can no longer hear voices
filter down from the night
and stars no longer seem the coat
of a mythic beast, I lose the signs
that tell me where I am.
For direction I look into a hand mirror
lying face up on the bathroom counter
to see myself as I am seen
by those who gaze up
from the soil. They see first
my soles, then above my head
the planets’ iridescent trails.
They see me looking down
holding my own gaze
until I find a flicker
of what the jaguar knows
when she wakes at dusk.
She listens as wind maps her path
to the river. Even as she laps
the night’s first water
she does not look down.
She senses the nerve
of the north star above her.
She focuses ahead.
