gives you a starting point, pith or kernel
a dream shaping itself
the window from where
I smell rain on the sages
see a beautiful grove of cottonwood trees
clouds making big dark shadows on the flatness
the sharp line of a storm
What language do they speak?

I am preparing a stew
of silence and wonder
quiet green ravines
the domed blue above, the friendly reds
bird noises and singing things
stars that touch the center of me
old scars, still tender
a shrinking sort of fear

I’m feeling sixty miles an hour
in soft, tired twinklings
it is beautiful and exhausting
as if I had straddled the whole world
to tell you about the music of it
great bundles of contradiction
with a hurt all through it
But light is thrown at it, time and attention
singing through the madness
a cellular arrangement
the trees are heavy with it

I am trying to see further
lead from joy back to mystery
There is never anyone to ask the things we most need to ask
Please tell me
do you feel like flowers sometimes—
little blue petals?
I hope so

~ Cento of lines/phrases found in the writings of the artists Frida Kahlo, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Emily Carr