Wild Horses

A million things today, but it’s late now. I stand in the dark, lean against warm tile, change the setting two to the right, arm up and dropped back, to send heat to the places I cannot see. And, funny, as the water travels down, all I see is desert. My eyes close because I want to go back to that land, that road, driving over a hundred on the highway, listening to Rumi’s poetry. Heat so intense, cars dot the roadside, broken down. But I fly. I laugh and cry, fast to the horizon by nightfall.

Speed turns to light, poems to music, music to crickets, and I am in Colorado. On my back in the grass, high mountain creek, a spot I choose in the morning and don’t leave until the moon comes up at night. I know I am above a canyon. I feel the void. Quiet trickle all day, sun arcs across the sky, and then the silhouette of my lover, who joins me in that grass. “I found your tracks. Took awhile.”

Arm in arm, legs entwined, we crawl into a nearby cave, and I am a thousand years old. He graces me that much. The mountain days.

In the water, hands smooth over cheekbones, checking to see how many miles and moons this body has known. No time forward, no time back – just waves. Guitar chords reverberate in deep recesses of memory – all the desire wound into eras of beat and tempo. This song, oh man, that time, that year, that man, that story. The heart reviews. And all those women folk singers - my angels, save me so many times I lose count. They find me now.

Hard day. Brutal around half-second morning turns. Tied in a bow during late afternoon. Turns sweet in the closing silence. Is this grace?

Tucked in bed, listening to Wild Horses over and over and over. Medic works, helicopter whoosh above; in the near-dream they patch me up. “It’s going to be ok,” one of them shouts through the dust. I lift, lift to the sky, and fix my eyes on him as he sings, “Wild horses couldn’t drag me away…”

Tonight we put River in her Bat Girl costume. All night she squeals, “Punkeens!” Driving through the dark hills, “Mama, Bot Goorl.” She cannot bear bedtime as I peel off her dress. “No, no, no, I wan bat gawrl,” she moans. Yes, my sweetie, I know. I know.

Music in my ear about putting guns down, taking off badges, leaving old places. Suddenly it’s me. I’m four, singing to my mother, “Mama put my guns in the ground, I can’t shoot them anymore. That long black cloud is coming down, I feel like I’m knockin on heaven’s door.” It’s still me, still singing, facing River. Turning around, my mother - in the shower, in bed, just me.

Feeling seasoned, stewed, a well-worn road. I do not wish for any other path. I wish, simply, to accept my own. Something calls from across the room, and I walk to my desk to find a quote scribbled on a scrap of paper. A gem to hold at the edge of sleep:

Beauty must be defined as what we are, or else the concept itself is our enemy.