“On some worlds water splashes up, dashing over
the fingers of trees.” That’s what she told me from the river
that runs east to west to the entrance where her cave
made a small hole in the mountain. “I’ve seen
little blue people crowd onto limbs as thick as buses.
The sun curls, winks on the water’s deep white thickness.
It falls through small spaces in purple beaded sage,
through willow leaning for a drink, waving with the wind
as the rust and russet fish dart down the pipe
like dust on the back of autumn leaves, DNA on snow.”
Through what else does the sun fall, I wanted to know.
“I won’t tell you that,” she spoke. “But I’ll say that
the sun sprinkles the ground under creosote bush.
It confuses ants into thinking that honey is dry as light
until they remember why they came to this place
for dew eventually dries by seven on the hot mornings
(thanks for the fish, the seeds, the raspberries, by the way).
“From planes you can see the ragged shadows of clouds on fields
checkerboarding the world. But the ants don’t know
aircraft. They’ll learn soon enough that the light
they keep running through is moving away from them
no matter how much they wish it were honey or sugar cube.”
I took up three raspberries and crushed them in my
palm. The old woman watched as my finger wrote
red on the limestone at her feet, “There are no rivers
that run east to west here, and rivers don’t end
at the mouths of caves.” She in turn crushed, wrote,
“The river oaks paint shade for the trout in the water.
Their leaves turn purple when the sun falls behind
the hills.” She licked the fruit from her dirty nail.
A trout’s tail curled at the corner of her mouth.
I gave her my finger and she lapped the ink from it.
I wiped the smear from her lips with a handkerchief.
When I turned to leave, the sun rose like an orange
finger smudge over the red mesa and the mist in the blue
canyon deeps drifted like weightless bird flocks. I hear her
laugh at the edge of the water. Her voice slaps on the river
like stones. Evening comes calm. Sun fish rest in the shallows.
“Come back when you’re able,” she called. “Bring
raspberries, fish, and next time dawn in a sealed cup.
We’ll use these to make squares” “Rivers” “Dogs”
“Bread and wine” “Surf and notes” “Ship masts”
“Love in winter time” “Gladness in the river reds”
“Peace in green of leaves” “Azure fishswarms in trees”
. . .
