WHY I WRITE

Because these words find me wanting,

a place real in the eye of the beholder,

I imagine landscapes filled with flowers, 

with names known only in books.,

Places that seem so real
I revisit them in dreams.

They might exist between
the pages of a book, 

or suspended midway between
the lips of a lover, leading me
to real places in the world.

The intersection of my wanderlust 

is in memory of my grandmother's
unexpressed desires.

She, who raised eight children, 

had no life other than squalling babies 

crawling in the iron red dust, 

eating bugs and litter with impunity, 

later eating their words, and others, 

as they, and their children after them, 

practiced the hunting stance 

with well aimed arrows, and epithets,

not realizing the enemy was also within,

forgetting the thickness of blood 

in their thirst for ammunition.

27 March 1996
Alexander Valley School