[ETHEREAL SINGING]
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
Sometimes the sun is still trying to get to the horizon
when a daylight moon comes up, fragile and almost transparent.
The ghost of a white bird with damaged wings
blown from its course and lost in the huge desert sky.
It is the least protected of all unprotected things.
A little wind goes by through the greasewood, heading home
to its nest among blue vein stones
where it will circle three times and curl up
to sleep before darkness falls straight down like a tile
from the roof of a tall building.
There are families of stones under the ground.
As the young stones grow, they rise slowly, like moons.
When they reach the surface, they are old and holy,
and when they break open, they give off a rich odor,
each blooming once in the light after centuries of waiting.
Those who have lived here longest and know best
are least conspicuous.
The oldest mountains are lowest, and the scorpion sleeps all day
beneath a broken stone.
If I stay here long enough, I will learn the art of silence.
When I have given up words, I will become what I have to say.
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
Command the stones in a loud voice
or speak to them just to the left of silence,
or sing them a love song in Spanish, they will not respond.
Write a letter.
In it, confess all your sins, place it under a stone,
leave it there for months.
And when you return you will find your letter
unopened and unread.
Stones have a sense of dignity greater
than that of kings, a sense of honor
stronger than that of friends.
Stones are fulfilled like prophecy, tendentious as rain,
and have a sense of humor more subtle than we can comprehend.
It takes a long time to amuse a stone.
First, you must capture one, carry it away, imprison it
with mortar in a wall.
The stone will not complain.
Then you must wait, and years after you
are gone under another stone on which some stranger carved
your name, the mortar and your wall will crumble,
and the stone you captured will fall to the ground amused
and free and going home.
[WIND BLOWING]
Nobody can stop this dry wind, this disaster of a wind.
Nobody can heal it, soothe it, send it on.
It remains.
Has it nowhere else to go?
Has it been forbidden to return where it came from?
It is driving us mad with the sound of a wound being
torn open again and again.
It can bend us down as it bends the greasewood branches.
It can desiccate our minds.
It screams at us with the voice of a raging mute who
has no words to tell his pain.
When we begin to scream in return,
it rips the words from our mouths,
replacing them with sand and the taste of all the evil ever done
to us by those who died before we could tell them
how much we hated them.
[WIND BLOWING]
Stranger, do not be afraid of the emptiness around you.
If you remain here, your eyes will
grow accustomed to desert light, then
you will be able to distinguish between seasons.
You will begin to see the citizens of this country
and realize you are not alone.
As each sun rolls over you on its journey West,
you will grow quieter with listening,
until you can hear the dry whispers of scorpions
and the mountains grinding against one another
with desire.
The cloudless sky will send all shadows to places of refuge,
but you will live on the head of a pin
where your needs are balanced.
And night comes as a knife so sharp you feel no pain,
but there is a new scar every morning.
If you give the scars a home and cherish them,
you will become silent and worthy of exile,
and beautiful beyond all witnessing.
[CRICKETS CHIRPING]
The teeth of these mountains were worn down
by an ancient inland sea to whose dry bed
we have come uninvited and unacceptable.
The sun, which bore down all day on Sonora,
is falling into an ocean far to the West,
leaving patches of shadow trapped
in arroyos and huge wands of color in the sky.
On the East slope, a flash of acacia, greasewood, and palo
verde, a moment of green light as brief
and precise as a moment of truth,
then silence after the sun's crescendo.
Cool air after a long fever.
The protective walls of darkness after the phantoms and mirages
of too much light and space.
Suddenly a cacophony of coyotes wailing and torment
for the moon to rise and rescue them from hell,
and a huge tarantula hauls herself
over her threshold in search of love,
in search of a small mate who will not survive
the violence of her embrace.
While two young rabbits huddle under a prickly pear,
their eyes opaque with fear, and the great bull
snake having been aloof from the world for seven
days and nights, again feels hunger and flows out silently
with the perfection of ultimate grace into his starry kingdom.
[CRICKETS CHIRPING]
[COYOTES HOWLING]
Out here, when the moon rises and Sonora
is covered with silence brilliant as snow,
I walk into a dream unafraid.
Down there in the valley lights go on at night,
but out here the stars are alive and well,
and each has a secret name.
Out here I am alone, but this is my country,
well past the halfway point where
I learned that my death will be the only thing I ever
truly possess.
Out here nothing needs me.
Nothing fails me.
I lie down in the bed of an arroyo, look at the stars,
and forget.
First the promises made to myself, kept or broken,
then the promises made to others,
then my name, place of birth, the numbers, and all the rest.
When there is nothing left, I remember the precision
of the hummingbird piercing the dark heart of the hibiscus
and doing no damage.
I begin to hear night breathing through me,
and I do not know what death is except silence, which does not
last forever, and wisdom, which will teach me
the secret names of the stars.
[CRICKETS CHIRPING]
Because the moon comes straight up from the mountain,
like the hidden possibility of madness escaped for everyone
to see, and the wandering stars who
are said to rule our lives wander on in darkness,
I feel a need to lie down among the stones and caress
any of them who have survived.
I always looked for what I wanted in the wrong places
until the desert taught me to want what I found.
Now on summer nights, I sit in the garden
where it is hot and dry and young stones grow like weeds.
When the moon turns a mad white face upon me,
having nothing to offer, I hold up my empty hands.
It is so easy to be happy.
This morning a woodpecker woke me practicing on his drum,
and all afternoon cicadas rang like the telephones
I haven't answered.
I am what has become of me, a man
who lives in the desert, where coyotes
wail more skillfully than hired mourners
at the funeral of an Eastern King.
Where every night, the stars whose light I have not
earned and will never deserve, return as if to keep a promise.
And even the rain, when it falls, is coming home.
[COYOTES HOWLING]
I love to go out on summer nights
and watch the stones grow.
I think they grow better here in the desert where it is warm
and dry then almost anywhere.
Or perhaps it is only that the young ones more active here.
Young stones tend to move about more than their elders consider
good for them.
Most young stones have a secret desire,
which their parents had before them
but have forgotten ages ago.
And because this desire involves water, it is never mentioned.
The older stones disapprove of water, and say,
water is a gadfly who never stays in one place long enough
to learn anything.
But the young stones try to work themselves
into a position slowly and without their elders noticing
it, in which a sizeable stream of water during a summer storm
might catch them broadside and unknowing,
so to speak, and push them along over a slope or down an arroyo.
In spite of the danger this involves,
they want to travel and see something of the world
and settle in a new place far from the domination
of their parents.
And although family ties are very strong among stones,
many of the more daring young ones have succeeded,
and they carry scars to prove to their children
that they once went on a journey helter skelter and high water
and traveled perhaps 15 feet, an incredible distance.
As they grow older, they cease to brag
about such clandestine adventures.
It is true that old stones get to be very conservative.
They consider all movement either dangerous
or downright sinful.
They remain comfortably where they are and often get fat.
Fatness, as a matter of fact, is a mark of distinction.
And on summer nights after the young stones are asleep,
the elders turn to a serious and frightening subject, the moon,
which is always spoken of in whispers.
See how it glows and whips across the sky, always changing
its shape, one says.
And another says, feel how it pulls
at us urging us to follow.
And a third whispers, it is a stone gone mad.
[WIND BLOWING]
In the desert it is not the sun we
get to know best, but the moon.
We learn about it when we are very young
and not a moment too soon.
If you come here to stay, do not worry
about what will happen to you.
The moon will take care of you.
You will obey it and the worst will happen.
It is no use asking the moon philosophical questions.
When it tells us anything, it tells us everything.
Always more than we wanted to know.
The moon commands the desert cold,
a word so harsh it splits the tongue of the true aloe.
The moon pulls stones to the surface
and directs the ghosts of dry rivers in their paths
toward the sea.
The moon rules the wind, which will fall in love with anyone
and run away, but the moon brings it back each time
without recriminations.
At night, my shadow follows me through the desert
like a faithful snake, but it is not faithful to me.
It is faithful to the moon.
Other moons can be seen in other places,
but the desert moon lives here and it lives alone.
Its own friend, its own company, its own comfort in the dark.
When I wake in the night troubled and thinking
I heard the cry of a bird, I go to the window and look out.
Then I realize it was the cry of the moon.
Years ago I thought I heard the voice of mountains
which spoke only at night.
Since then I have listened many times, and I was mistaken.
It was the echo of the voice of the moon.
When I am unhappy, the moon reminds me
that all things change.
When I am happy, it does the same thing.
I can believe that men have walked on the moon.
Men would do a thing like that.
But when I am told the moon is a huge round stone,
which does not change its shape, and has no light of its own,
I cannot believe it.
I have heard the voice of the moon.
I have become confused and do not know who I am,
I listen to the voice of the moon.
The moon knows who everyone is and forgives all of us.
When the moon is new it begins at the beginning
and tells the same story straight through to the end.
It is a long story, but we listen and believe.
Who can doubt the voice of the moon?
It is important to learn the habits of the moon,
otherwise one might wait all night and it would not appear.
And when the sun rose triumphant,
one might despair believing the moon had been destroyed
and would never return.
The sun is like fire.
It takes what it wants and pays no attention to anyone,
but the moon knows each of us.
It looks into our eyes and remembers all our names.
When we watch the sun go down, we
are impressed with its glory.
When we watch the moon go down, we want to go with it.
The sea, the wind, and the owl try
to imitate the voice of the moon, but none succeed.
Beethoven and Debussy tried to write its song,
but compared with the voice of the moon, one of them
created the sound of screen doors slamming
and the other the sound of a pork chop being fried.
When the moon rises in the afternoon
and sets too early to be of any use, I remember how old I am
and that I no longer have the option of dying young.
When I sleep and moonlight comes through the window
and touches me, I become a dream.
No man turns into a wolf when the moon is full,
but wolves howl when the moon is full
because they hear its voice.
Some think the moon is silent.
They are blind.
[COYOTES HOWLING]
[MUSIC - HANK WILLIAMS SR - "YOUR CHEATIN' HEART"]
Your cheating heart will make you weep.
You'll cry and cry and try to sleep.
But sleep won't come the whole night through.
Your cheating heart will tell on you.
When tears come down like falling rain
you'll toss around then call my name.
You'll walk the floor the way I do.
Your cheating heart will tell on you.
If you live where I come from and you
want to be rich and beautiful, first get rich,
then we'll tell you you're beautiful.
Hell, settle for that.
You can't have everything.
Walk down Main Street at midnight
when the only place that's open are two bars in the same block,
turn the corner, and walk past the homes of the good people
of Santo Tomas.
Everybody will be doing one of three things rather well,
sleeping, drinking, or the thing we all
think we would do better with somebody else's husband
or wife.
And maybe an angel, like a huge white moth,
will be hovering over each of us.
Years ago, some desperate farmer took this land away
from the desert and every summer the desert wants it back.
In the heat, everything stops moving, even the dogs.
All night cicadas drill our teeth, water gets scarce,
and what little there is warm and bitter,
but we learn to drink our liquor straight.
New people come here sometimes, but don't stay long.
I'd like to know what attracts them.
Maybe the need to suffer, we all have it,
like a bird pecking away inside us as if inside an egg.
Some people think that if you suffer enough,
you'll get to be better, even noble.
But I've lived here 40 years, and I get meaner every day.
I have nothing to recommend me except longevity,
and, hell, what good is that?
Show me an old man who doesn't envy every stud
he sees, and I'll show you a body with the undertaker's
fingerprints all over it.
Because of the way they dress, it's
getting hard to tell the whores from the female schoolteachers,
which probably means that whoring
isn't nearly as well-paid of profession as it used to be.
What, with all the enthusiastic amateurs around here.
I used to think this bar was the center of the community,
and if I sat here long enough, I'd
learn everything worth knowing about the good people of Santo
Tomas.
But this afternoon, I went to the funeral of the richest man
in town and watched his two widows fight
over which of them follow his coffin to the grave.
Now, I realized, that all significant social events still
take place in church.
The Earth is moving several ways at once,
but sometimes I wonder if we're going with it.
And when the drive-in movie shuts down for the night,
the stars remain over Santo Tomas
like holes in the darkness through which we
see a great, enormous light.
I don't think death will be much use to us,
since we've grown accustomed to using pain for our purposes
and even love when you have to.
I think death will arrive when we have nothing
left to use to get what we want or when we no longer want
anything, whichever comes first.
I've learned to wait.
Nothing we want is ever worth what we go through to get it,
and the difference between what little we have to offer
and how much we're asked to pay is life, a kind
of debt we always owe somebody.
I'm in no hurry to pay it.
If you can't make it newer milking the canaries,
you can leave your wedding cake and go to Cleveland,
Des Moines, or Little Rock.
If you can't make it there because of the humidity,
you can go to Tucson to drink the air and live in the sun.
If you can't make it in Tucson because of the heat,
you can go to California and wear dark glasses.
If you can't make it to California, you can go to hell.
It isn't far, the border runs right through Los Angeles.
[MUSIC - HANK WILLIAMS SR - "MIND YOUR BUSINESS"]
Well, if you mind your business then you won't be minding mine.
I got a little gal that wears her hair up high,
the boys all whistle when she walked by.
Why don't you mind your own business?
Mind your own business.
Well, if you mind your business, then you sure
won't be minding mine.
[WIND BLOWING]
On December nights when the rain we needed months ago
is still far off and the wind gropes
through the desert in search of any tree to hold it,
those who live here all year round
listen to the irresistible voice of loneliness
and want only to be left alone.
Local knowledge is to live in a place
and know the place however barren.
Some kinds of damage provide their own defense,
and we who stay in the ruins are secure against enemies
and friends.
If you should see one of us in the distance
as your caravan passes, and if he is ragged and gesturing,
do not be mistaken.
He is not gesturing for rescue.
He is shouting go away.
[NATIVE AMERICAN SINGING]
Stars, you inquisitive animals?
Shall I tell you the same things again?
Shall I tell you all the places I
went when I had nowhere to go?
Shall I draw you a map?
While it is still night with morning around the edges,
I will take the face of dawn in my hands and say it.
Surely if I can tell anyone, I can tell her
that I have found the gods and discovered
I am not one of them.
If I must have faith in something,
it might as well be the desert as the river,
it might as well be today as tomorrow,
my fingers as my teeth.
It might as well be despair.
All I can do for the moth is light the candle.
All I can do for the forgotten is forget.
[NATIVE AMERICAN SINGING]
Where one mountain sits on top of another,
we turn the basket upside down and sing a holy song.
We are in great peace.
It is not true, but it will confuse our enemies
and none can sing the dead back again.
The little bat sits in the last row
with his coat over his head.
Take our pain and put it into the fire.
We are in great peace.
When you ask for something, you must give something in return,
but none can sing the dead back again.
[NATIVE AMERICAN RATTLE PLAYING AND SINGING]
In the darkness of the first world, beneath this world,
the gray legs of the crow walk around
in search of a body saying, at the time when things began,
we knew all about it.
We knew about the mountain spirit, the black sky,
the shining stone.
We knew all about it.
In the silence of the second world,
beneath this world, yellow coyotes run
in circles in search of their voices, wanting to say,
at the time when things began, we knew all about it.
We knew about the water spirit, the corn pollen, the talking
god.
We knew all about it.
In the smoke of the third world, beneath this world,
the souls of dead men carry offerings
in search of fire saying, at the time when things began,
we knew all about it.
We knew about all the soft goods, the hard goods,
the sacred words.
We knew all about it.
There is no fourth world beneath this world, only the fire,
who knows nothing, needs nothing, wants nothing, and is
content.
[NATIVE AMERICAN BELLS PLAYING AND SINGING]
Moon says its name as a sign in the sky.
Wind says its name, which runs along
behind it, trying to catch up.
Road says its name as a casual promise and then moves on.
Mountain says its name in two languages,
both words are almost the same.
Bat says its name and listens for the echo
which will guide it.
Coyote says its name again and again
to the moon, which pays no attention.
Palo verde says its name as a snare
for the wind's name, which runs along blindly, trying
to catch up.
Arroyo says its name to the coyote,
who translates it as home.
Place between two mountains says its name
to the stars, who say their names not quite in unison.
Owl says its name as a challenge to intruders
who do not know the password is to repeat the name.
Darkness says its name, which breaks
into small pieces and hides from the moon in the arroyo.
Silence says its name softly.
The name of the place where it was born and lived until it
died.
You have so much to give, they said, so I gave it.
Now it is gone.
I stand with my back to a cliff, where stones
lean over looking down at me.
They are smooth.
They have dragged themselves a long way to get here.
Years ago, I wrote love letters to distant water
and wore the desire to travel like a hair shirt.
But that is over, and regret was never a friend of mine,
so I let him go in search of the others who departed
wearing accidental lives, mocking me, calling me, he
who remains.
And I remain in the desert, caught in the ropes of myself
like rosaries.
Staying here with penitent stars whose confessions frighten me.
There is no explanation for lights which move about
inside the mountains, and coyotes
are all that is left of a race we once conquered.
At night I hear them worshipping gods with unspeakable names.
I have learned to make use of pain.
He never fails to take me into his confidence,
telling me more than I wanted to know,
and when morning arrives, bringing
whatever it can to help.
I ready myself for the impetuous revival of sand.
If I were to leave this desert, who
would cherish transparent light?
Who would nurse broken stones?
Who would mother the cold?
[NATIVE AMERICAN BELLS PLAYING AND SINGING]
Some years the birds fly south for the winter
and there isn't any.
Trees beckon to them, but they fly into the desert
which has had no autumn rain.
It is winter in a dry season.
The coyotes are warming up for a night of unearthly music,
and the moon hangs by its horns above the Santa Ritas.
I am trying to say something about my life in a dry season,
while thirsty birds sleep with their heads
under their wings and coyotes chant vanity, vanity, vanity.
When a man loves the desert, he loves it as he loves a woman.
At first in spite of her imperfections,
and later because of them.
All day I lifted stones and fitted them into a wall,
carrying each one carefully, walking on my heels
like a woman with child.
The wall will stand, perhaps five years
before the stones leave me.
When they have made their journeys
down slopes and into deep arroyos,
I will slip out and find them scarred and chipped
in the moonlight, and bring them home.
There is a bird who follows me, curious
to know what I am doing.
And why should he fear me when he kills rattlesnakes
and outruns coyotes?
There is a spider who struggles so
hard to escape the embrace of his huge love sick mate
that he dies of exhaustion.
There is a toad who digs his way six feet up toward desert rain,
and when he arrives, bleats like a lamb.
I have chosen this place and given it a name.
It is called my place.
A place without subtlety, where morning light is
unfiltered by leaves and the wind blows
unhampered by leaves.
Where sunlight hurls itself down as if each day would
be followed by two nights.
Sunlight, which pierces the closed
eyelid and impales the eye.
And after a day heavy with heat in which to be empty
handed is burdened enough, the sudden vacuum of dry cold.
Now, while the moon pulls darkness
toward a place where somebody must need it
more than I do, and new stones are struggling slowly
to the surface, I wait with the chollas, who
stand under the shelter of their dangerous long blonde hair
and watch for rain.
I, who was promised little by men,
have waited for it, gone without in order to have it,
and, finally, it arrives as a blessing.
Place I have chosen, where I will not pay tribute to those
from whom I learned the most.
If they want it, they must steal it from me
as I stole their knowledge from them.
Place I have chosen, where exile is home.
Thicken my roots and extend them toward secret compartments
of dark water, which will nurture me,
that I might live a life without explanation
in all the books of men.
[NATIVE AMERICAN BELLS PLAYING AND SINGING]
This is the land of gods in exile.
They are fragile and without pride.
They require no worshippers.
We come down a white road in the moonlight,
dragging our feet like innocence,
to find the guilty already arrived and in possession
of everything.
We see the stars as they were years ago,
but for us, it is the future.
They warn us too late.
We are here.
We cannot turn back.
Soon we hold out our hands full of money.
This is the desert.
It is all we have left to destroy.
[NATIVE AMERICAN BELLS PLAYING AND SINGING]
Tonight, at the end of a long scar in the desert,
a bulldozer sleeps with its mouth open,
like a great yellow beast.
A coyote sits down to watch it from a safe distance.
An owl questions again and again.
No answer.
Someone is building a new road, a fine road, wide and smooth.
The huge saguaros in its path have stood here 200 years
looking up at the sky.
This will be their last chance to see the moon.
In the morning, the yellow beast will
wake up and move toward them.
We believe in movement.
We live in the sanctity of mobile homes.
We are the children of those who created the portable Indian
and moved him from place to place.
Ours is a republic of cylinders and pistons.
A republic of wheels.
Progress moves before us over the hill,
and we pursue it as fast as we can.
With our horses in trailers, our politicians in limousines,
and all our angels on motorcycles, we pursue it.
The world rolls on, and these gods of the desert cannot get
out of its way.
They are no use to us.
I have stroked them until my hands are bloody,
but what comfort can I offer?
They are doomed, and I am tired of being human.
Tired of being mad in a mad world.
Now I lay me down in the new road, but to whom can I pray?
The owl has stopped calling.
The coyote gets up and fades away.
I will look at the moon as long as I can,
then I will sleep in the desert, helpless in the path
of progress, waiting for the sound of wheels.
[NATIVE AMERICAN BELLS PLAYING AND SINGING]
A small child of a wind stumbles toward me down the arroyo,
lost and carrying no light.
Tearing it sleeves on thorns of the palo verde,
talking to itself and to the dark
shapes it touches, searching for what it has not lost and will
never find.
Searching, and lonelier than even I can imagine.
The moon sleeps with her head on the buttocks of a young hill,
and you lie before me under moonlight as if underwater.
Oh, my desert, the coolness of your face.
Men are coming inland to you, soon
they will make you the last resort for tourists
who have nowhere else to go.
What will become of the coyote, with eyes of topaz, moving
silently to his undoing?
The ocatilla, flagellant of the wind, the deer climbing
with dignity further into the mountains,
the huge and delicate saguaro.
What will become of those who cannot learn the terrible
knowledge of cities?
Years ago, I came to you as a stranger
and have never been worthy to be called your lover
or to speak your name.
Loveliest, most silent sanctuary,
more fragile than forests, more beautiful than water.
I am older and uglier, and full of the knowledge
that I do not belong to beauty and beauty
does not belong to me.
I have learned to accept whatever men choose to give me
or whatever they choose to withhold.
But, oh, my desert, yours is the only death I cannot bear.
[WIND BLOWING]
[ETHEREAL SINGING]