Nell Smith
Tidal Desert

i.

I came to live in the desert,
having never imagined
how it goes still and cold at night,
the slew of stars stippling the sky with light.

My parched roots disregarded
the thin vein of the Colorado River,
comparing it to the coastal currents,
the Atlantic' s expanse.

I craved the first flush of birch buds,
lush after a spring rain,
because the soil tasted like dust instead of dirt,
and what was tender only came out at night.

I traced quartz crystals
with my fingernail across the surface
of granite, gold in place of grey,
and suddenly felt the absence in unconformities.

ii.

Gradually, I learned to notice small conformities —
the way ferns grew along the base of boulders,
how even between the spines of cactus,
flowers unfurled in spring.

I placed strength in adaptation,
because of the oaks
that press all their energy
into small, sharp leaves no bigger than my thumb.

Because I could descend
in the chasm of dissolution
between the layers of sandstone
to where life is pressed like petals,

I began to sense the land' s lungs
beneath the soil, see the hardness of the desert
and understand that here,
life is not to be presumed.

iii.

I came to see the resilience
of creeks and streams,
the way they come in ragged arteries
and cut existence into the jagged landscape,

but until I returned to the ocean,
I never wondered why I had thought
the desert and sea were so different —
neither invite nor offer anything with ease.

I stared hard at the unforgiving swells
and thought how canyons
still curve around absent water,
and perceived the pull of a tidal desert.

I felt the urgent and necessary movement
of the mahogany seed
reaching out through a single bead of water
to find roots in the spiral of the universe.

<< return to the Table of Contents for New Series #6: Winter 2018, Volume 3 Number 2