April & Poetry 11

Mojave Majesty

Mother warned me not to tame the wild lilac.  But why should I mind a woman who drinks the nectar of the Sacred Datura?  We’re engaged in a typical mother-daughter wildflower. She shoots petals of blazing stars at me while I try to drown her in meadow foam.  We’ve only recently discovered the resins of the knobcone, the needles of the Ponderosa, the phallic cones of the Sugar, and the Shakti of the Torrey pines.  She prefers mountain hemlock, I, urban gridlock.  We ghost, thrive, and choke on our hike through a grove of Coast Live Oak.  Mother throws herself on a bed of bay laurel mistaking it for Coyote Brush.   She shouts, Divine Lover, if you do not reveal to me your true essence, I choose death!  Mother often threatens the cosmos in this way.  I sit back and cross my arms over my chest to observe her display of spiritual anguish from a critical distance.  Nearby, I find some coffeeberries to smash.  I paint my lips green then red then black.  I tie on my hip scarf.  I sugarbush. I sage.  I choose dance over waiting for Mother.  Later, I run off to meet my idol at a desert campsite.  Her name is Lyrica.  I find her contemplating compost as it swelters beneath a lone Joshua Tree.  Shamans say this land is a healing energy vortex.  Some local people still practice ancient drum sex.  Natives once worshipped rhythm here.  People come here to learn how to kiss rhythm.  Here, we practice dropping the Self between the beats.  A local master instructs me to remove my city and step into the hot Gong bath.  The copper pressure waves lift consciousness; the tin pressure waves shift awareness; and the nickel pressure waves wave waves way away the way waves wave away.  Sound waves wave away brain waves wave away light waves wave away magnetic waves wave away waves away waves away away away way way way way way away.