Tall above a dust brown earth burnt by the sun,

Shadows move against the western blaze

Each step reclaiming the land—

Panther-black against a hot blue sky that hurts the eye,

Striding onto the plain with the serene power of the leopard,

The Ibo have come home.

When I was lost

In another world

Trying to forget

The world where I should be

Fearing a future dark with emptiness,

You brought me a dream

For real—

You gave me sunshine

Rainbows blossoming

Gaiety and laughter

All.

 

You were the greatest friend

I will ever know.

Thank you.

Thank You.

Not far from the streets of Santiago, Chile

Lies a long valley

Of serene pastoral beauty.

The miles there lull the mind

Into forgetfulness

Till the mountains’ wound

Is exposed in the summer light.

 

The heat of raw red earth

Radiates from peak

To valley floor.

The land is torn

As if by grate or rasp

Till the scraped away flesh

Lies in mounds

Like ground red spice

Poured onto the wide meadow land.

 

The mountains’ wound dwarfs

The road leading away

It seems merely a fine thread;

The machines that chew the land:

Mere flakes of mica

Tumbled amid the spillage

Of the harsh red, dry powder burn.

 

In an Idaho valley, U.S.,

Deep forest green appears blue gray

Through smoke filled air.

A rain-washed blue rings the mountains

Like the fringe of a Franciscan friar’s tonsure.

 

The air is thick with more

Than the factory spewed clouds.

It is like breathing fine stone

Or the dry dust of cinnamon,

Though the flavor is not so sweet.

For it is copper

That chokes the lungs

If you chance to take breath

In this deep valley.

 

And it is the milk of copper tailings

That spills opaque blue-green

Where the creek bed winds.

Amid the river rocks

The pale turquoise churns

Like liquid aged copper

Poured from a smelter’s pot

Into a pre-set form for sale.

 

Two continents, two countries,

Two valleys united a single cause:

Copper—turquoise poison

In Idaho waters

Copper—the red wound

In Santiago’s mountains.

In a city’s grease and smoke

Limestone is gathered

by street cleaners for burial

As the refuse it has become.

For in a city it will blacken

And decompose…

Till, like a leper,

Its rotted parts simply drop off.

 

Wind buffeted in the desert

Limestone may lose to windburn

Some grains of itself.

Which may ride the sky

For as long as the air is turbulent

Then, in some far distant place,

fall silt-soft from the air.

 

Limestone will bleed in the rain,

It essence seeping

Deep into the earth

Where it heals in the dark

Forming calcite ripples

In deeply hidden caverns.

Or, melting imperceptibly,

It slips away into rivulets

flowing into gullies and rivers

till it gentles down

onto lake bed or sea floor.

Lifted from the tide pool,

Malachite

Lies wet and cool

In my hand

While primordial memory

Flickers in my blood

 

Or quivers across my skin

As I touch Malachite’s cousin,

Serpentine,

Warm and slick in the sun.

 

Wet tadpole ripples

Ride the heart rhythm

Pulsing in waves.

Lizard sand trails

Scrape scales against flesh.

Sediment silts into the riverbeds

Of my veins.

Cooling magma steams

In my bones.

 

I am rock and life.

I am alone on the beach

Where ancient memory

Assaults reality

And transforms dreams.