[APPLAUSE]
"Saguaro," a two-part poem.
WHAT THE DESERT IS THINKING
We know the desert has consciousness
because the saguaros stand up and speak
as one about the heat.
[LAUGHS]
They tell the Gila woodpeckers to come in out of the sun.
They tell a man or a woman, lost, without water,
to lie in the column of shade they make out of kindness.
They all hum together like Tibetan or Gregorian monks, one
green chord that people hear when
they drive through Gates Pass and come to the place
where they make a small gasp.
Beauty does that.
Though the nihilist will make a joke about the note of surprise
that has escaped from his or her loneliness.
The smile from the joke will cover for the smile,
for the joy.
That's okay.
Consciousness is like the saguaro's primordial cells
that take a century to come up with the thought,
maybe growing some arms would be a good idea.
[LAUGHTER]
"Questions for a Saguaro."
If it takes you a hundred years to grow your first arm,
for how long do you feel the sensation of craving something
new?
Did you ever feel impatient when someone put a shirt
over your head, and it took fifty years
to grow your way out of it?
[LAUGHTER]
Does it feel like greed or self-actualization
when rain comes and you suck up every drop as fast as you can,
even if you starve the palo verde that
has sheltered you as you grew?
Do you ever say to yourself mindlessly, wordlessly, god,
it's too f___in' hot!
Or after the monsoon, I feel so bloated!
Or before, I'm so parched.
[LAUGHTER]
Sometimes people are thrilled to see you lined up
in disarray like soldiers off-duty forever
in the quiet desert.
Does anything thrill you?
A mountain lion scratching its backside on your spines?
[LAUGHTER]
Flowers erupting from your head?
Fruits packing seeds that will move
all you've learned from your one rooted spot into new places
called the future--
does that mean for you joy when the sweet packages fall
to expectant ground?
[APPLAUSE]