Before Work

The desert is still and cold this dawn. A quarter moon, tattered at the southern edge, drifts alone in a soft blue sky. All the stars have retired into the light and there are no clouds to anchor with. Frost on my car windshield and my bicycle seat, but it will soon melt off; it is not the cold of deep winter, of early January, but a simple morning cold, settled down into the canyons, and walking slowly among the sage roots and grass stalks now fully free of snow. Winter still resides up high, to the north and east in the peaks, the blue gray snowfields above treeline spilling in tongues through the spruce forests. There is more up there than before, it snowed several feet in the past two weeks, and you can see it in the thickness of the white, a settled depth, something to last until late spring, something to give to the river and the streams. It snowed down here, too, but it did not last, the ground is warming, the days are longer, the sun higher, nowhere for frozen things to hide in the desert day.

I am busy with work, busier than my swirling energy likes; "I" burn off myself like fog, in wisps, off and out, into the air, not back in where I am left empty, making slack faces, not knowing, not sure, lost in an unattended space.

Last night I dreamed three dreams and my sinuses went dry, filling up behind my eyes to moisten the walls. My mom flew me over the coast in an open contraption, an ulta-light, over east shore road, toward bayville, a late season snow on the beach and the lawns of the coastal houses. My brother was down there somewhere, and I knew there was more snow on this coast than in the desert, and that bothered me, but my mom had to show me. She was instructive, maybe telling me that the teardrop shaped bay I grew up by is beautiful, as beautiful as anything else I've known. We flew over twice, one time during summer. I did not know the driveways and the people, the cul de sacs, and the seaweed colored water. Or maybe I did, but have forgotten.

I walked to high school along the streets of a city. My pace was fast and I had a bundle of hot dogs in my hand. I did not know where to put the hot dogs as I approached the school with its brick facade. It felt new, a place where I might run into somebody unexpected. I felt disheveled, too much stuff, the hot dogs cold and thick in my hands. In one version, I remembered I had a backpack and stuffed the meat in there. In another version, I walked the hallways with long, buffalo hot dogs in my right hand, protruding out like fat, bendy pencils.

In the last, I was walking with friends, a woman with a small child. We kept approaching a plaza, like the one in Santa Fe, springtime, buds on trees, pigeons warbling and strutting. I felt close to an understanding, not feeling bad, but still a tightness in my solar plexus, something not quite landed, not quite sure of itself, something still tied in a knot. She seemed to know and asked me how I was doing. I told her I was doing well, doing well, and I meant it, but the tightness remained and the moon was in my window. The clock said 4:47, but I was still in the dream. My friend, who knows me, said, "You look tired." And I knew this, knew the tightness had been interrupting my sleep. I nodded hoping we'd approach the plaza again and I would be less tired.

On Saturday, I hiked Devisadero and went to my brother tree on the way down. A raven played with me, riding the wind just above the canopy, crowing when it got out over the cliff. At the tree I put my forehead against the sharp, thin branch that juts out and put my hands around the bough. It was calm, no wind. And yet this tree swayed at its core and I felt its heartbeat, vibrations into my hands. I looked up to confirm that there was no wind. There wasn't. This tree moved for me. It waved its trunk and I could feel its life.